Tom Wallisch Speaks

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/tom-wallisch/team-americas-thoughts-on-joss-setting-the-record-straight/110657445641505

Just wanted to give you guys a real statement from our side of the story. It sucks that is has come down to this. To have someone of Jon’s status personally call us out for things that are untrue, and spread rumors based on assumptions just isn’t right. Simon called Jon the day our video was released online, and discussed the event and video release itself. To show respect, Simon happily took the edit off of his website. We never went out of our way to say anything bad about this event or Jon himself. We have our own opinions on many things regarding this event, but kept them to ourselves as a matter of personal respect. We feel bad that we now have to set the record straight and back up our own reputations thanks to Jon’s blog post.

Jon is speaking about us and the event as if we're deliberately trying to sabotage his event in some way; which we have not and would never do. He also describes us as "not speaking to him or saying goodbye because of our score" which is completely untrue. We didn't have a chance to talk to him at the awards, and apparently never went out of our way to search out where he was staying to find him and thank him. For him to say we simply blew him off and disrespected him is completed unfounded. It isn't all one sided either; just as athletes are nothing without great events like JOSS... an event is also nothing without the top quality athletes. We all owe a lot to Jon for putting on such a fun event, but he also owes a lot to all the athletes that worked their absolute hardest for two long weeks to create videos with his name on them.

We would never outright attempt to disrespect Jon or put down this event in anyway. It is and has been one of the most fun events we've ever participated in. We respect Jon and all the hard work he has put in to make this event happen! We've spent thousands of dollars traveling to and staying Sweden, and have nothing to show for it after 2 long weeks of work other than our edit. That is why we decided that we would share our video with the world as soon as possible. By no means are we trying to steal the lime light from the other teams, because if anything this has captivated people and brought the stoke level to an all time high for the other videos to be released. We are just as excited as everyone else to watch all of the videos again. And we will watch all of them from Jon's site.

The reason we were upset and confused is simply because the judging criteria was so far-fetched from anything we've seen in the past. We were never informed of such drastic changes in the judging. This year as we found out at the awards ceremony the judging was based almost entirely on film making/theme. A perfect video to describe what the judges were looking for would be the hilarious video Colby and Symms made last year (which by the way received last place last season.) We are not upset in the way the contest was judged, but just upset that we had no idea it was going to be judged as such. The way the judging was done this year, it would be smarter for Jon to invite 2 filmers next year and let them pick their corresponding athletes instead of inviting athletes themselves. The filming/theme was more than 50% of your score this season, making top notch skiing almost unnecessary. But once again we are not upset at how it was judged; just that we had no idea it was going to be judge this way.

One factor that should have been considered and scrutinized more before being an integral part of the judging, was the distribution of points. The judging criteria and points breakdown given on the website is completely different then the format used to score the videos for awards. The judges gave 1 point for the 3rd place team in each judging category then 2 points for 2nd and 3 for 1st, and no points for 4th or below regardless of how close they were to placing in the respective judging category. The way points were awarded, the judges were basically saying that if you weren’t going to be one of the top 3 teams in a category, don’t bother adding it to your edit because you won’t get any points. So teams that tried to make well rounded edits but fell a little short in areas were severely penalized for not placing in the top 3 of the teams. Had this been a Slopestyle comp, it would be like the judges saying that if you aren’t going to do one of the best 3 tricks on a feature, don’t bother hitting it because you won’t get any points awarded for it. This is a major flaw and the cause of the extreme inconsistency in judging that allows teams to simply neglect certain aspects of the contest.

By no means were we ever trying to sabotage the event that Jon has worked so hard to create. We have continued to travel around the world for this event every year in the hopes of helping it grow to become bigger and better. The idea behind this event is absolutely amazing, and we will forever give props to Jon for working so hard to create and put on an event of this nature. In terms of Jon speaking about considering more thoroughly “who he invites next year,” you don’t have to worry about us. As we have already told you and your co-workers at the event, we will not be returning next year.

Just wanted to set the record straight, and make sure Jon doesn’t give all of you the wrong impression on how everything happened!

Thanks again though Jon for all your hard work. Good luck with all of your future endeavors! And thanks again for everyone that has watched and will watch the edit we’ve made. Hope you enjoy! It is the edit we’ve made that we are most proud of, and most stoked to share with all of you!


Cheers!