The usual drive before the Olympics for snowboarders to get the biggest and baddest tricks on lock-down is starting to garner some media attention. The Wall Street Journal article “When Snowboarders Baffle the Judges” addresses how often judges must score a trick often times they have never seen before. This could be a problem for White, who has been training at his secret facility in Colorado.
White decide to show some judges his new moves rather then to unveil at the games, in part to help prevent what happened to Skier Johny Moseley in the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games. Moseley performed a brand new trick he coined the term “dinner roll” for. While the trick is now considered one of the most difficult to perform, and Moseley did so perfectly, he still didn’t manage to medal.
White’s reason to show the tricks, despite the possibility of other riders imitating his them, is so he could “educate the judges.” There are other factors that may play in to a judge not scoring well for tricks technically harder, snowboarders are not required to give a list of the tricks they will do like some other sports, so there is more of a surprise factor. There’s also a good chance none of the judges can do anything even close to what the rides are doing.
haha that’s a good idea for shaun white…that would suck if white were to unveil a crazy-hard trick and not score high at all….at least this gets the judges participating.