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Don't hate the trick, hate the judging.
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Unfortunately I haven't gotten the chance to see any footie from the X Games yet, but it sounds like bullshit as usual. I am disappointed in the majority of the competitors for not getting creative, but they really aren't the ones to blame- when I knew I could get X Games gold and a fat check for throwing the typical trick, I'd huck it too.
The problem lies in the judging, but it's not at simple as just saying 'lets all stop spinning to win.' i found the judging article in freeskier a while back very interesting, where Loubeck, Douglas and Szocs were discussing the impossibility of judging on style alone. I agree with them that judging on style is difficult, but I think at the very least that some aspect of creativity should be a MANDATORY part in judging any competition. Style is not only how and where you grab, how you cork your spin, etc. but what trick you choose to throw--and that can be easily judged. When ten riders in a row throw a switch 10 and one rider throws a switch 7 (and its obvious that this rider could throw the exact same switch 10 if he so pleased), it's obvious that this rider is making a creative, style-based decision. Judges need to realize this and take pro-active measures to make sure the athletes are informed so that every big air competition in the next five years isnt the same huckfest, because this shit is starting to look exactly like old freestyle. Style is hard to judge but not impossible, and I say it's better to make a dubious judging call based on style than simply award the podium to whoever spins longest and manages to get a grab in somwhere- ESPECIALLY when every competitor is throwing the same trick! The trick that is thrown most frequently should be the trick that DOES NOT WIN the competition.
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"ESPECIALLY when every competitor is throwing the same trick! The trick that is thrown most frequently should be the trick that DOES NOT WIN the competition."
Truth.net right there.
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The judges should be people like Mike Douglas, The Phils and veterans like that. They really understand the sport.
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i'm not sure i agree with the switch 7 taking the switch 10 out, but the point about originality in the trick is a good point. A switch rodeo 7 with a sick grab or a double misty or something at equal difficulty but different from a switch 10 would be nice.
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Totally true Ethan... the atletes are all way too scared to not get the money, but that's another argument.
The judging is whack. Skiing needs an organized judging panel... I don't know why we haven't partnered with the IJC (snowboarding international judging organization). Those guys have a pimp program.
When they train judges, they train them from all recent footage, and train them to appreciate all aspects of snowboard tricks. They train the judges to have proper opinions on what is good, and give them the ability to form their own opinion as to what is a sick trick.
When the judging happens, there is a score called "overall impression" which is designed so that you can just give the trick a MASSIVE score if it "felt" sick to you.
So if the trick bored you to death because you'd seen it a million times already that day, a low O.I. score would be given. If it was unique, cool and super sick, you give it a high score.
They have managed to leave room for smaller rotation tricks that just blow the judges away.
I sat in on one of their guys talking once, and he was explaining that they always reserve points just "incase someone did a 180 that was so fucking sick it had to win"
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the thing was, for at least x games, not everyone was landing their 10s, id say not even 50 % of the people landed 10s, A LOT of people were falling on them, very few people were falling on switch 7s, so stomping a trick a lot of people are falling on should do well, this whole arguement is rediculous in itself, it pretty much needs to end because until we get a competition like snowboardings Air & Style the judging isn't gonna change, so all this complaining really needs to stop.
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I completely agree.
But the thing is the skiers need to make a stand for anything to change. I realise its either skiing or the money. Thats just a decision they have to make. Laurent has made it apparently.
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a tric kthat came to mind that should win over a switch 10 is a shifty 7. Shifty 7s are in my opinion the most stylie trick out there right now when done right and should deffinitely win over a switch 7. or a corked zero spin.
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But big tricks like switch 1080 scores hard for DD (degree of difficulty) and should not have an influence on the style.How it works is that the DD is multiplied by the 3 in-between-score that gives your final result.
Let me explain. there are 3 main things judges look at: Amplitude, style and landing. All those three criteria is what makes gold or a loser. Also it give the general impression of a jump quality. The DD is just to augment the score.
To put it in other words, is a guy does a sw 10 and shows no style and another guy pulls off the 900 with sick style, that guy will win.
But yes, the judging does seem unfair at times.
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Yeah but degree of diffculty should barely even matter.
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This sounds sick. There should always be the possibility for that 180 that's so sick it just has to win. I also like the idea of the overall impression, everyone can feel it when a trick is just absolutely, ridiculously sick, but the reasons why can't be explained on a judging checklist. More than anything, I think that our judges need to be updated. Loubeck has been running this shit for years, and I would have no problem with that if I thought he was getting the job done right, but judging shouldn't be a job for washed-up ex-pros just trying to stick around.
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yeah, but shillers 10 was just as smooth as all the 7's out there. who was smoother? maybe laurant, but he did a smaller spin, and an eaiser grab....
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the judge in x-games are josh loubek and shane scock.josk loubek is to muck oldschool the style is not important for this man because i never have style
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you cant blame the 10, even if they ran the comp on the regular slopestyle course you would have seen at least 3 tens in the winning run. What did shaun white do... 3 tens and a 9, at least it was a switch leftside and switch rightside.
one thing to say about the snowboard slopestyle was that White was the only one to cleanly land a 10 and he did 3 of them. either the rest of the finalist feild couldnt do tens or decided not to do them, obviously Rice decided not to.
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why should DD not matter?
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unfortunately the judges arent at the position in the sport to take a 7 over a 10.... the xgames viewing audience wouldnt understand for one... sure NSers would but were highly educated to tell the difference between a great 7 and a good 10. X games is x to the masses supposedly, even if it is only one day on ABC. besides you cant have us run the thing... were the ones who have to keep the idiots in check, the intellectuals dont run the white house... they just complain about it.... thats us. its how society works
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Its simple really. The slopstyle format was created so you could build a complete run showing off your "bag of tricks" It would be really easy to just make certain types of tricks more or less manditory similar to the way they judge gymnastics. you just wouldn't have it so tighty based. For instance you could say that one of the kickers needed to be an inverted trick of some kind. That way you would at least get some variety in the runs and that would enhance the competion for the viewers and give the athletes a chance to show off a another aspect of there talent. So you just call a meeting or send out an email to all the invited athletes with what the judging criteria is going to be for the comp that year and you try and pick it to force the competitors to show some variety. You could also for instance say that one of the jumps had a no more than 7 spin on it so than for that one all the athletes would try there most rediculous grab they can pull on that. This way the comps will stay fresh and entertaining to watch for the people like us who have nothing beter to do than watch all the skiing we can find and joe blow guy chillen in his house.
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yeah the judging is awful
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I think that DD should matter. Style should just matter equally as much, and there should be more education and stricter style judging.
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i'm just a little confused. it seems everyone is saying a big spin should never win. but the DD here is way higher than say a 5. if the 10 is hucked and the 5 is all tweaked out, the five should win. that's pretty clear. but what happens when there is a super stylie 5 and a clean 10. who wins then? the DD on the 10 is higher than on the 5 but the style on the 5 is higher than on the 10.
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i couldnt agree with you more, the xgames judging was fucking lame.
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dont hate the trick , hate the format man
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don't hate the player hate the game
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So we all know that TJ can stomp the piss out of a sw 1440 with the grab, but he did 10 with 3/4+ of it holding a HARD grab...are people arguing that someone should have beat him and this judging was wrong?
I am baffled?! I love stylish tricks, more than hucked but this was not hucked, and it WAS stylish! TJ is setting the bar, Laurent is also setting the bar. I don't think Laurent although oozing style should beat TJ, because TJ had style IN ADDITION to a more techy trick.
That said I think there needs to be some judging bench marks of what tricks ARE pushing our sport in the direction that eleminates the need for posts like this.
Do we want to see more flat rails in the park/movies that most people can do? Or would you rather see something that pushes you and is harder? Done with style I would rather watch someone on a techy rail all day, same with jumps.
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The way I see it, no matter what someone will hate the judging of an event because someone has to lose.
To me the best way to judge would a big air event would be to forget the degree of difficulty factor, and focus on the presentation of each individual trick. That way everyone could through what they think is the sickest trick from their bag. Be it a 1440 or a "180 so fucking sick it had to win". This wounldn't work, but I like the idea. Creativity should win a big air, but tech tricks should win a slopestyle.
If the competition is close and everyone has thrown sevens and nines, and you are the last to go and throw a clean stomped 1080, I think you should win. But if your 1080 was hucked to shit and you missed your intended grab(sometimes no grab looks just as good to me, if that's what you intended to do) you should in no way beat a clean switch 7 truckdriver.
I was pissed they didn't just postpone the slopestyle like they did motoX. It seems like this year's X games has been fumbled from the beginning.
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what about gagniers left side (unnatty) 10 with the tail tweaked to near parallel? The landing was not stomped like TJs in the sence that TJ landed like he never left the earth but gagnier might have barely touched a hand to the ground... I think the DD of a unnatty sw10 ranks up there with a sw 1440. I thought it was funny that TJ admitted he had a hard time rotating regular unnatty 7s and how he gave props to gagnier for throwing them unnatty and switch. The judges need to learn to decifer between natural and unnatural, it isn't just left side/right side forwards backwards. No doubt schiller threw down mad style and it was big, the only problem I have, other than the fact that it was a big air comp was that gagnier clearly threw a harder trick with nearly as much style and lost...
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Sometimes it isn't a matter of style, but a matter of repetiveness. The skiing competition scene is getting stale because no one wants to do anything new.
Remember how in the past, it seemed like every year there was a new "trick for that year"? Everything was changing, every comp, someone did something new. Now it looks like things have just plateaud.
Personally, i could watch someone thow the NICEST , sickest styliest switch 10 in history, and id still sit there and yawn. For me, its not the lack of "style" all the time (although that happens sometimes too), but rather, the lack of variety.
Know what would be sick? A comp where we all watched live online, and then we got to judge the whole competition through some sort of online instant survey.. or at least got to influence the score in some weighted manner. It would be a much better reflection of what we as skiers would like to see.
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I did not bring up that point but I absolutley agree that unnatty should be heavily weighed, to that point the judging may have been flawed in not giving Gagnier the win?
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diff grabs...laurent knows whats up
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k i usually never do this... but obviously none of you know anything... i dont remember the exact judging panel...
but...
eric pollard was a judge
also, szocs, josh loubeck and rory will... all just as veteran and experienced as mike d, and in my opinion a lot better judges, mike would give whoever does the best iron cross on salomons the win
and 2, i have never seen a switch 10 done better than TJs... however, gangier should have won on his first jump... UNATTY misty 10 opp tail, it wasnt the biggest, best or cleanest, but it was unatty and better than most of the natural 10s in the comp... instead he got 8th after the first run
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didnt benedek win a big air a few years back with a monster bs 180 double shifty, and then next jump he did the same sized switch bs double shifty...its in afterbang i think
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force9, I didnt mean to say that what you were saying is wrong, because you are correct, TJ deserved the score he got... but the judging was flawed as gagnier stomped the unnatty 10 tail tweak and I was just baffled at the score he got
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i feel unnaatty shouldent be givin more points, i mean the whole point of big air is to impress people and do something stylie, if TJ threw a clean natural 10, then gainger did a skety unnaty one, gainer shouldnt with just cause it was unnatty, i just think it should matter, sure its hard, and may turn out not so good, but the whole point of big air is to look good in the air and stomp a clean stylie trick. my opinion
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i think big air just needs to be abolished all together.
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alright you are right "the most frequently shown trick shouldn´t win cause that means it is a easy trick for the pros and everybody can doit,but a trick which isn´t easy to do should win"
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makaio makes an excellent point. just because a rider finds unnatty spins more difficult, doesn't mean they look any better or that they should be given more points by the judges.
however, my biggest issue is with variety. favre has super style, bushfield throws ridiculous switch flips (which i guarantee the public find more impressive than the 27th consecutive sw 10, and candide does spins which we don't even have a name for. (check skifilm.no, breckenridge clip) yet these guys aren't dominating the scene now.
this shit needs remedying...
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