XGames Judging
For those of you who caught the X Games ski big air, you will know what I’m talking about. If not, this is a good summary of the night for skiers.
For the first time ever in the X Games, the judging of the big air, both snowboard and ski, was to be done not by a panel of judges, but by the public viewing the event. The votes would be measured by text messages received from the viewing audience. I’m guessing you can see where this is going…
In the snowboard category, Travis Rice, being the sole American competitor in the event, had little to worry about that night, claiming “America’s got my back”. And right he was. An entirely American crowd of teenage boys and girls showed little to no compassion for Rice’s competition, clearly the better side. This article explains how the prejudiced judging went down.
On the ski side, it was the same. Simon Dumont, the lone American, had little to do but show up in order to get his gold medal. The degree of difficulty and execution of his tricks were nothing compared to that of his competitors. In the Jan 24th episode (Big air practice) of Jon Olsson’s videoblog, he predicts Simon will win the contest with a superman double front flip, clearly a crowd pleaser. Sure enough, despite PK Hunder’s amazing double 12′s, and Jon’s switch double 10 (with afterbang thank you), Simon walked away with the gold. Here is another good summary of this debatable topic.
Anyways thought I’d share that with you. Nonetheless, Simon was kind enough to donate his winnings to his injured friend Riley Poor, which in the end was a very thoughtful move. Perhaps a new judging system is to be thought of?
I currently am searching for a petition of some sort showcasing the redundancy of this text-based voting system and will share when found.
CAM
Photo: Bennylin0724 on Flickr
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DEW it up! Freeski Slopestyle
With all this pow we’ve had recently up Grouse Mountain, its easy to forget about shredding park. For those of you in need of a little “reminder” of whats going down these days, look no further than the antics that took place this weekend at the second stop of the Winter Dew Tour at Mount Snow, Vermont.
With a slopestyle course manicured to near perfection, the level of riding on Saturday was absolutely absurd. For a little run down of course check this POV cam by the one and only Tom Wallisch provided by the good people over at freeskier.com.
As you can see, the course provided riders with everything needed to make for a contest full of flippy-spinny tomfoolery. Alexis Godbout held down third place with some bangers like a 630 off, right side 900, left 900, and switch left 900.
Making it all look easy was PK Hunder in second place. PK has been slaying the competition scene so far this season. Its tough to imagine that a run with a 360 switch up, switch on to rodeo 450 off, right side 720, switch left 900, and left 1080 could only conjure up a second place. PK appeared to have a little difficulty dropping into the second axis on his patented double cork 1080 which may have hurt his score slightly.
The double cork aside, PK’s run was still no match for first place winner, JF Houle. JF threw down some of the most technical rail tricks ever seen in competition (450 on switch up 450 out, huge 630 out, nose butter 270 on pretzel out) combined with a right side 720, left 900 and switch left 1080, JF and undoubtedly deserved the win…just watch the video.
So kids, let this be an inspiration to you! Get out there and practice up! The Quiksilver park is coming together nicely with three decent sized jumps on the left side. The rails, when not buried in pow, are perfect for getting those 270s, pretzels and k-feds down. Get practicing because the second Oakley Night Jam is coming up on January 23!
See ya up there,
-cj