I followed you ok right up until the last 2 sentences.
You have every right to dislike his style. I will make the argument that you're probably comparing his wins in the X games from several years ago to gold medals at the X games now, which is a bit unfair, but still I have to respect your dislike of his particular style.
Here's where I have some issues with your rebuttal.
-The tapes of his run have not surfaced as of yet (and likely won't until it is aired on NBC/ABC/whatever), so you have almost no basis to say he's skiing shitty right now. If, when the tapes do surface, it is established that his riding is kinda penciled, sketchy, and not as solid as many would hope, I will rescind much of this statement. You have to remember though- it's not like the judges are giving him any form of handicap. If he's scoring high (which he did), he's clearly competing at the same level or higher than most of his competitors. This is likely both in terms of technicality and style.
My main issue with your rebuttal is with this statement:
'-he's a fucking idiot and a terrible ambassador for our sport'
it's kinda oxymoronic. You start the sentence with a level of say, middle school immaturity, and then try to cap it off with a mature and 'adult' ending. If you're walking around calling people fucking idiots, you have no real say in his ability to be an ambassador to our sport.
Tanner is very well spoken on a one-one and a one-many basis. He can handle a crowd, and is actually able to speak and coherently send a message. He goes out of his way to attend premiers and fundraisers, (he flew all the way from Jamaica to the states one stand by in order to make it to one that I was involved with), and he generally raises the stoke of everyone at the event. Yes, he's competitive, yes, He says shit on his twitter feed (that maybe 5 non NS members follow), and YES, there is a picture of his (and i'm pretty sure Jon Olsson has one too) penis floating around the internet. But that doesn't matter. when people meet him at the events, when people get to talk with him, they leave with nothing but stoke for him and the sport.
Out of the many (pro skiers/their agents) that I (dealt with/tried to deal with) in organizing that fundraising event, He and Henrik were the only 2 that went out of their way to help, or to even seem as if they gave a modicum of a fuck. It was for the CRJ foundation, so you could argue that Tanner had some vested interest, but still. He showed up. He got people excited. He was polite, amiable, easy to talk with. Regardless, the hate continues.
I guess that's my main problem with NS right now. so many people are able to just rock the hate towards others who they've never met, and never had a chance to interact with. In general, I would love for it to mellow out a bit on the hate, and just keep raising the stoke. It's winter, we should all be out having fun.
