Farmville420I’m convinced they kept inviting him with 0 intentions of actually allowing him to win
if you mean the April shoot w/ the finalists, it's a fully rider-judged event. People vote based on overall impression mostly on but also off the hill, it's not a vacuum of just technical skill
if you mean before the event choosing between the semis and finalists, then yes that is up to Level 1 to decide
Personally speaking, I really like Mathius style and there's some excellent clips in that submission.
Objectively speaking, based on
the SU rules on Level 1's website, I'm assuming it didn't score as highly due to the repeated tricks, and being a 100% park edit doesn't help either. "Tricks cannot be repeated" is literally one of the bold bulleted paragraphs for the rules, so we can assume it's a significant factor for judging. Just casually watching I noticed switch 5 and lip 2 to sw have repeats, and there's also 2 similar switch 4 disasters, and various fairly similar jump tricks. He was probably pretty evenly scored with another finalist rider that had more variety in their entry and therefore edged out Mathius.
^I could be wrong w/ this assessment but it's my best guess
also speaking of Level 1's website, this is another important bulleted paragraph:
"Only amateur athletes are considered eligible for the SuperUnknown contest and prizes. How do we define “amateur?” Basically if you’re receiving money as part of a contract beyond equipment and travel support, you are by definition a “pro” and no longer eligible. If you get free skis or someone bought you a plane ticket to get to a contest you’re still good to go in our book. We reserve the right to disqualify entrants if we feel the rules are being bent too far or broken."