Olympic Snowboarding Overview

First off, you have to understand that the scoring and judging for the Olympics is done just like in the World Cup circuit, which Americans don't do. This scoring especially emphasizes big air and goes by a 50 point scale, not a 100 point scale, like in the X-Games.

The reasoning to emphasize bigger air is because it raises the difficulty level by being much more dangerous if one falls. Also, a trick generally looks better the higher a rider gets out of the pipe. Finally, with a 50 point scale, scores can get close and judges have to get picky to differentiate between riders; so, bigger air comes in handy when one needs to separate a great run from a really good run.

This final point, of course, could be simplified if they just changed to a 100 point scale, which would offer more separation between the runs. Also, in my opinion, if a rider lands a whole, good, strong run, they should automatically be scored higher than someone whose run wasn't as good, but they went higher. Finally, if the pipe conditions aren't great and there's no way the riders will get bigger air, do you lower all the scores, or is it a comparative thing? On that note, if the conditions improve throughout the day (as happened Thursday, when the sun set and the pipe hardened again), do you score the later riders higher than the first ones, because they were lucky enough to go later and thus get air easier?

That being said, I didn't have a problem with any of the results except for how low they scored Louie Vito (I thought he deserved to be right with Scotty Lago and I. Pod. with a 41 something) and how high they scored Peetu Piiroinen (who eventually won silver).

I was disappointed to see how many riders went down throughout the competitions. I would prefer the final scores show who laid down the best run, with everyone doing their best, not who happened to finish. The ones I'm thinking of specifically: I. Pod.'s second run would have definitely raised his score; Kazuo didn't land either of his attempts and left the pipe bleeding with nothing to show for it; Gretchen Bleiler could have threatened Torah Bright's score had she landed either of her runs; Kelly Clark could have gone higher than third had she not clipped the lip and lost speed, forcing her to throw out the 1080 she had considered ending her run with; and I'm really sorry for Spain's Queralt Castellet, who was third after the women's qualifying run, then got injured in a training run, and couldn't even compete in the finals.

One thing I was glad to see was that the Chinese didn't win anything. See, the Chinese Federation's approach to snowboarding is the same as their approach to any other sport: harsh, regimental training focused solely on defeating your opponents and not enjoying yourself. While I can accept that something like this happening is the sad inevitability of the progression of the popularity of the sport, as NBC's analyst's said, "It's just not snowboarding."

The Chinese really need to look at all of the big names in women's snowboarding (Bright, Beiler, Clark, and Hannah Teter), and notice how they manage to be great, to stay focused on the sport, and yet enjoy themselves and not take it all so seriously. Hell, if the Chinese just got a foreign coach for the snowboarders who let them have fun like they did for the freestyle skiers, that would be a pleasant change, and the snowboarders might just get better like the skiers.

One final thought: Shaun White's run was EPIC! That will be remembered for quite some time as a moment that progressed snowboarding and brought the sport to a whole new level, and it left me cheering and feeling almost as good as if I had just landed it. It was just an awesome moment.