"Did Anybody See That?"
(and other reasons judges suck)
by Brooke Geery
Decision time. Who should win? On the left we have Jeremy Baye, who had trouble putting his feet down on any of his mctwists, and on the right, Jesse Fulton, who stomped 2 of his 3 runs, and pleased the crowd with a double backflip on the other. Seems simple, right? No, first we have to make several considerations. One, Jesse already had one good finish in the pipe earlier, and Jeremy's name is yet to be mentioned. Second, We don't want to look like the ethnocentric Canadian bastards that we are, so we need an American to win. Since we already gave away the prizes for everything else, one of them damn US kids has to winthe quarterpipe. Since Jeremy is the only one of the 3 Americans in the contest that did a trick, looks like he's today's champion. Sorry Jesse. Of course, a week later at the Lake Louise event, Baye stuck a McBaye, and Jesse did a fakie five. I'll just let you guess who won.
Over the last season I have become perplexed by the conspiracy that is snowboard judging. It seems no longer to matter what trick you do, or if you land, but rather who your sponsors are (and if they sponsor the event), what your name is, how well you've ridden in the past, or where your from.
The most obvious example would have to be this year's US Open. While the point of the event was originally intended to see who the best snowboarder in the world is, it has become more of a Burton Showcase. There are always exceptions, like in the case of Jimi Scott, who hasn't cleared the lip in years, but as a past champion, always seems to fair well. Other than that, the best way to do well in the open is to be a Burton Rockstar, or be named Terje. (pretty much the same thing)
Another prime example is the lesser known, but equally as bad Molson Challenge Cup series. It is advertised as "Canada Vs. USA", with all the events happening to the little US of the north, but I think they are having problems with the getting Americans to come part. The main reason for this would be they have absolutely no chance of winning, probably another example of Canadians trying to make up for their countries inadequacies. The best example of this would be Kale Stephens, a local at Blue Mountain, where the event was held, winning after landing on his butt before his feet. Just a note: the kid who got second stomped a rodeo 7. Another example in this series (as seen above) is Jeremy Baye walking away as quaterpipe champ after sliding out on all of his mctwists, while Jesse Fulton stomped two cripplers and did a double back, which he almost even landed. Even Baye knew he didn't deserve to win, and went up to Jesse after the contest saying "sorry I took your 500 bucks."
Now I will admit that being a completely unbiased judge with the state of the industry today is next to impossible, but the "He's a local, so he wins" mentality has to go. How easy is it to let your mind drift away from the ever repetitive pipe runs and miss one of someone's hits? This is to be expected, cause I know I would do it, but that's why I'm not a judge. A acceptable solution for this however, is not to look down at your judging sheet, and say, "Oh yeah, I've heard that name, and they won last year, I'm sure their run was good." In all actuality the judges should be big enough to admit that they weren't doing their job, and the rider should really get another run.
Another problem that arises often is that with competitive snowboarding being relatively new, there is yet to be established a standardized judging system. while in some contests, double-pumping a trick will add difficulty points (as it should), in others it is referred to as sketchy or ugly. A rider can never be fully aware how their run will stack up to a different set of judges. This brings up another problem, that there are so many tricks and variations that a set amount of points could never be given to each one, and this is something that is not likely to be solved, especially not in this rant.
One organization that has begun to address the scoring system is Stimilon. While trick points are still a little up in the air, they have landings down to a science. Now I know that when I'm watching an event on television and the person who wins doesn't land, it makes me not respect the contest. The is why the If you don't land, you don't win system is so great. It also keeps people from hucking and killing themselves, but that's a- whole-nother thing.
So by this point I'm sure that you are assuming that I've had a couple of bad contest finishes, and am taking out all my aggressions by writing this long winded article, but such is not so. If you don't believe me that most judging is wrong, next time you are at a competition, position yourself next to the judging stand and count the number of times you hear them say, "What was that?", "Was that good?", or my personal favorite, "Did anybody see that?".
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