Big air to poles or not to poles?

I dont know how legit this information is but someone can correct me if its not true. But while watching mens big air qualies the commentators discussed about the pole/no pole and one of them commented that judges rate your grabs higher if you have poles versus the same grab without poles. Did not know what to think about that or could it be true that judges have also started addressing the "pole/no pole" argument.

JerziiiI dont know how legit this information is but someone can correct me if its not true. But while watching mens big air qualies the commentators discussed about the pole/no pole and one of them commented that judges rate your grabs higher if you have poles versus the same grab without poles. Did not know what to think about that or could it be true that judges have also started addressing the "pole/no pole" argument.

Interesting... I could see how achieving a grab with poles makes it more difficult in theory. I think just as far as style, throwing a trick with poles just looks better. So style points are probably affected too

aerials and moguls does not recognize misty/bio/rodeo/flat/cork/offaxis and thats unique to snowboard and ski.

where you benefit from having poles you have equal disadvantage. its fair and i dont see any reason to penalize one or the other.

Traditionally poles was the go-to, until people like Tom Wallisch and Henrik Harlaut started dropping them for style reasons.

Eventually all the comp skiers dropped their poles because it’s easier to grab so it became “stylish” again to ski WITH poles.

Now it’s just a preference thing, some people like how poles look and feel, others like no poles. Poles are still harder tho.

should just be persona preference

There is a middle ground, 1 pole. Or if you get extra points for using poles is there a limit? maybe see how many you can hold...

Phlebotomist

I totally agree with freeski Sweden here. The womens podium just looked like aerials. Kirsty Muir from the U.K. and Meg Oldham from Canada got awesome tricks and grabs and imo weren’t rewarded fairly for their style/difficulty. It’s easier to grab with poles and easier to spin big but I didn’t see anything given to the skiers with poles doing it properly in competition.


that’s just my opinion though

Also to add to my previous. Gu and ledeux got, imo, very ugly grabs. Those two I previously mention got the grabs properly. The judges just seemed to reward progression over style and execution which is think is totally wrong. If you do something new but it’s messy it shouldn’t be scored higher than something that’s done beautifully and still super technical.

i can see how others might say this won’t progress the sport but it will require people to execute those progressive tricks more cleanly rather than just buck something new and expect a win. That’s a very slippery slope