Thank you for this opportunity! After following all major competitions intensely for the past three years I've come up with some questions that I feel are relevant. Pick none of them or all of them, but I hope you guys can provide me with some answers. This first question is one I've been dying to get an answer to for years now:
1. Unnatural vs natural
Do you take a rider's natural direction of spinning into consideration, or do they just have to show variety? So would a right dub 12 and switch left triple 12 score exactly the same as a left dub 12 and switch right triple 12 on the last two jumps regardless of the fact that the rider spins left naturally? Do you personally feel that a trick can be unnatural even if the rider has only done it one way? surely not?
A left dub 10 is not considered the same trick as a right dub 10 in terms of variety (if executed back to back). How about grabs? If the rider does mutes on both jumps, will he be docked points for using the same grab twice, or is it considered a different grab because it is mirrored?
2. Comparing technicality
How do you compare the technicality level of tricks? Does a switch dub 10 dub japan trump a switch dub cork 12 mute? or does the double grab add more than a 180 in terms of difficulty? Does a 450 on beat a lip 270, or would you have to go to 630 to come out on top? Does a pretzel 2 beat a continuing 4? is a japan in a forward double cork easier than a blunt? How do you relate to tricks that you haven't personally executed?
3. Replays
Why are you not allowed to watch replays? There is so much going on in a top level slope run that I find it very hard to believe that any human being can consistently put out correct scores for every single feature in every single run during hour-long sessions.
4. Upright spins vs double corks - variety!
How do you score huge upright spins in relation to doubles? Alex Schlopy says that the switch 14 is the hardest trick he knows (or was at the time) even if he'd done dub 16s as well. At what point does the rotation get so big and fast that it can be considered harder to stay upright than to sort of wobble off axis into a double cork? Does an upright spin add to variety, or is it only important to spin all four directions?
5. Preferred execution
Do you generally prefer more inverted doubles, or wobbles? or is it irrelevant in terms of scoring?
6. Communication with athletes before/during events
At a lot of comps I hear comments like "I guess I just didn't bring what the judges were looking for". I find those statements surprising. Shouldn't there be clear communication between judges and skiers/coaches before every competition, so that nobody gets robbed of their chance to shine? Is there?
Are there any restrictions on what you can tell athletes? For example: Can an athlete get a straight answer if he comes up to you and asks "Hey, mr Atkinson, if a do a left dub 12- switch right dub 9- right dub 12 run, will you score it higher or lower than a right dub 12 - switch left dub 10 - switch right dub 10 run?" This is of course assuming that all tricks are executed perfectly.
7. Absolutely mandatory breakdown of Olympics run
A comparison of Goepper's and Joss's runs in the Olympic slopestyle final, feature by feature. Throw in a few comments about Gus as well, if you have the time.
Well I think that's it for now. You guys usually do great work and deserve props for it. I hope you consider my questions and help get NS on board with judging in future events. Looking forward to this!
/Freddy
