Opinion: The Olympic Slopestyle Women Deserve Better

Are you familiar with the concept of a “Norman Door?”

It’s a design concept, originally used to describe a door that’s confusing or difficult to use. Those push doors that you end up pulling. Nowadays, the term has extended to describe any design flaw that on the surface, makes the user look like they’re doing something wrong. More often than not though, it’s not user error, but rather, a design flaw.

This entire women’s slopestyle final was a giant, lingering Norman Door that will haunt the International Ski and Snowboard Federation – and probably the International Olympic Committee - for the next four years. It did a disservice to the riding of the best slopestyle riders on the planet. It took a luxury product and sold it at Costco. It robbed riders of what they deserved, of what they worked so hard for, and of what they may never get the chance to do again.

And unfortunately, it’s a tale as old as time.

For those of you who are unsure of what I’m talking about, here’s what happened. After heavy snowfall in Livigno, the women’s slopestyle final was rescheduled to a day later, merely hours after the men’s competition. The course was slow. It was slow for most of the day for the men, who competed just a couple of hours earlier, and we saw how they struggled to land jumps. Mons Roisland. Mark McMorris. Marcus Kleveland. Some of the best riders alive had trouble battling the conditions.

As we know, courses rarely improve as the day goes on. The women were left struggling to gain enough speed to put down their complete runs. Several riders from Japan and Korea were taping their pants to try to cut down on wind drag, similarly to what halfpipe riders did at the Laax Open. Others were tucking when approaching the jump line. We can say with near certainty that some riders’ choice of rail tricks was impacted because of the need to maintain speed toward the bottom of the course.

And of course, we saw the big bails, specifically on the third and final jump. Jess Perlmutter crashed hard on her final run, keeping her from putting down a unique run that could have possibly put her in podium position. Annika Morgan needed to stomp one last run to give herself some wiggle room on the podium. She fell on a backside melon attempt at the fifth jump and was bumped off in the last run. Australian Ally Hickman put down a phenomenal third run, only to come up short on the final jump. Canada’s Juliette Pelchat finished similarly, after butt-checking on the knuckle of jump three in her final run. Laurie Blouin stomped on the knuckle in her own final run, and at 29 years old, I just know her knees will be begging her for forgiveness come Thursday.

The bottom line is that the most difficult part of the entire course was the final two jumps. We can say that definitively based off of the evidence in front of us.

Yet the judges did not adjust their expectations accordingly. It’s almost as if they decided the way things should go when they woke up that morning and stuck by their guns.

Look, I hate – absolutelyhate – to be the writer who comes on here and harps on the judges, and on FIS, and on the IOC. That's low-hanging fruit. At this point, there’s nothing more core in snowboarding than riders being mistreated in a landmark contest. Boy, oh boy, did that happen yet again.

I do not know if the same judges that were hired for the women’s event worked the men’s contest just hours before. If they did, that might explain why Ollie Martin was egregiously underscored as well. If they did not, that only further proves that widespread, systemic change is needed if we ever want to get this right.

I am not here to place blame for blame’s sake. I’m not calling for any judges to be fired or lose the privilege to ever judge again. If the judges don’t have the right tools to do their job to the best of their ability, why not? Let’s siphon some money from whatever part of the budget pays for Snoop Dogg, settle for Busta Rhymes, and get the correct riders the correct medals. If the rumors that are floating around are true that Olympic judges get just $100 a day, well, I have a pretty good feeling we can start there! I used to make more money umpiring a Little League baseball doubleheader back in 2014.

This is not a knock on Mari Fukada. She put down the second run she needed to put down after falling on her first. Was it worthy of an 85.7? I’m not sure I agree with that. But we can certainly agree that a switch backside 1280 mute on her first jump scoring a perfect 10 is misplaced. Particularly when we know the rider who finished in third – Kokomo Murase – has put down a backside 1620 in competition. Maybe in the conditions at hand, a case could be made for a 1440 scoring a perfect 10. A 1620, though?

I don’t know, man. Cue the Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad meme.  

@breakingbad

he can't keep getting away with it #breakingbad

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They can’t keep getting away with this.