Snowboard Big Air will be one of the most exciting spectacles at the Olympics. One jump, spin-to-win, winner takes all, right?

Well, kinda. 

I’m going to break it down a bit, from a judge’s perspective, and walk you through all points that we’ve talked about within the contest community, to ensure that we’re judging the sport how the riders want it to be judged. 

Words by Gaz Wessman-Vogan

The Format

So instead of it being just the best-trick on the night, the riders get 3 runs and the result comes from combining the scores of the best two tricks from different directions. 

For the men these directions are clockwise and counter-clockwise – i.e. backside and switch frontside are classed as the same direction (as a regular-footed rider, both of these rotations are clockwise, or “to the right”).

For the women, the directions are frontside, backside, switch frontside and switch backside. 

Both genders can also go for frontflip, backflip, switch frontflip or switch backflip – or tricks on those axes without any horizontal rotations – they’re just less common nowadays. 

Snowboarding has progressed beautifully in the last Olympic cycle, and we’re at the point where the level is starting to outgrow the format. We’re seeing single tricks that go in multiple directions – both clockwise and counter-clockwise (Eli Bouchard and Ollie Martin have been wizards in this realm), so we’ve had to go into detail about how we determine the direction. The direction of a trick, will be determined by the majority amount of rotation on that vertical axis – i.e. horizontal spinning, or “yaw” if snowboarders were airplanes [according to Google]. So if a rider does a backside 720 into a frontside 360 (weird, but yes, it’s been done) then it’s classed as backside, because that’s the direction the majority of the rotation was done in.

The Criteria

This is the backbone of snowboard judging, and when we’re comparing trick Vs trick, we always go back to these criteria. 

Difficulty. This is probably the first one that springs to everyone’s minds, because it’s such a go-to. Within the Difficulty criteria, we’re analysing the mechanics of the trick itself. Quite often, this looks at the amount of rotation within a trick – but we go into more detail than that. We take into consideration the axis, the choice of grab, and how the whole trick works as to whether it is easier or more difficult than another trick.

Execution. Often the key separation criteria between similar runs, Execution is all about control and stability. “Style” doesn’t feature as a criteria, because “All well-executed snowboard tricks should be stylish”. Style is also so subjective, that what I think is stylish, you may completely disagree. So we stick to Execution. Is the trick controlled? Is it landed cleanly? Was the grab held through the majority of the rotation? Does the rider show full mastery of the trick and is able to add their own tweak or personalisation into the trick? These are all questions that if answered “yes” show good execution.

Amplitude. The most objective of the criteria, and quite simply looks at how big the rider goes. Not necessarily just in height or distance, but we look at both height and distance and forming a nice high trajectory through the air, resulting from a well-timed and nicely executed take-off.

Progression. Arguably one of the most focal areas of snowboarding at the moment, as we’re in one of the most progressive seasons across all disciplines. Progression looks at rewarding tricks or runs that have progressive elements in them. Not just new rotations and “adding a 180”, but whether it’s a different take-off or axis or grab combination, or even trick combinations within a run.

Key Consideration: The Take-Off

We’re into the era of snowboarding, where we’re seeing a whole lot of progression just in the take-off of the trick. Riders are pushing the level forwards with nosebutter take-offs and hardway take-offs. The actual rotation of the trick might be lower than what we see from the spin-to-win crowd, but the take-off itself adds a lot of difficulty into the trick. 

With the buttered take-off, we look at it like a Risk Vs Reward trick. Not necessarily the riskiness of the trick itself (which with some tricks, the risk is sky-high), but the riskiness of the execution. To be rewarded fully, a nose-buttered take-off must be a true butter – with weight over the nose of the board, a full-press onto the nose of the board during that pre-rotation with the tail of the board completely off the snow, before popping and initiating the rest of the rotation.

If the rider nails this and it’s obvious to the judges that it’s a nosebutter take-off then there’s certainly a reward for it. But if they don’t execute it well and they end up just skidding through the take-off phase rather than pressing onto the nose, then it’s just considered a pre-spun take-off and the score goes the opposite way. That’s the risk to the execution criteria.

When we say “hardway” take-off, this is just the unnatural way to set a rotation. Frontside rotations are naturally set from the heel edge, whilst backside rotations are set from the toe edge. So a frontside spin off the toes, or backside rotation off the heels is typically called a “hardway” takeoff. With frontside rotations – heelside or toeside is a bit of a personal preference – some people find it just as natural to take off from the toe edge as others do from the heels. But with higher rotations, it does add some level of difficulty to the rotation. 

However, backside off the heels is never really a “natural” style of take-off, and adds a lot of technical difficulty to a “standard” rotation.

On a “normal” take-off, we consider the impact of that take-off. A well-timed, well-executed take-off will likely lead to both better execution of the whole trick, as well as a greater amplitude.

Key Consideration: The Grab

A grab is everything in snowboard big air (and, to be honest in slopestyle and halfpipe as well), it’s what stops this from becoming Snowboard Aerials.

The word from the riders is that even the most progressive trick must be grabbed and well executed to be fully rewarded. 

To be rewarded within the execution criteria, the grab must be a grab – actually holding the board through the majority of the rotation, not just a checkbox exercise where the rider vaguely touched their board at some point during the spin.

We look to reward proper grabs – strong grabs in the right part of the board. Tindys, tailfishes, nutes, and nelons get suitably unrewarded. If you’re grabbing outside the bindings, then it better be on the nose or tail of the board (or a Euro method).

Snowboarding is now at a level where the choice and mechanics of grab gets fully evaluated: how does the grab itself and the way it’s done affect the rest of the trick. Does it make the trick easier or more difficult? For example, a nose grab where the nose of the board is pulled right up to the hip makes a flat rotation a lot easier than having the arm fully extended and the nose of the board away from the body, as it compresses the body’s centre of mass and allows the rider to rotate faster.

It’s no longer just “what” you do, but “how” you do it.

Key Consideration: The Landing

Obviously, this is a rather critical part of the trick – but how harsh are we as judges on the landing of the trick?

The answer: pretty harsh.

We’re always comparing trick vs trick when we’re judging, and because the riders are quite commonly stomping the biggest rotations with ease in a contest, we then have to hold every trick to that gold standard. 

Anybody in contact with the snow gets hit pretty hard in the score: hand touches, hand drags, butt checks etc. When we look at the hand touch, we evaluate how much weight and support is being put through the hand/arm. Is it just a gravity-induced swipe of the snow as they come round? If so, then we’re not overly harsh. If it looks like there’s a lot of weight going through the hand, and without putting that hand down then the rider would have fallen over – then we have to be harsh on it.

Is the rotation finished before the rider lands? Quite a common mistake we see, is the rider landing 90 degrees short of their full rotation, and then finishing the last part on the snow. This is something we have to hit hard, because we’re seeing riders fully stomp the same trick and land with their board pointing straight down the hill. We see the opposite issue as well, with riders over-rotating the landing and having to hang onto their heel edge to stop the board from doing another 180 on the snow.

Key Consideration: Progression

Snowboard Big Air is in a beautiful stage at the moment, where two different avenues of progression have reared their heads and charged forward. 

One of those avenues is the “Spin to Win” crew, where progression is the addition of another 180. It’s how we’ve got up to seeing the mega-high rotations (1980, 2160, 2340) in Big Air competitions. This one is a bit more straightforward; typically, the higher the rotation, the more difficult the trick.

The other avenue is the “weirder axis, low rotation” crew. Not an official term, but there’s no colloquial expression for the opposite of spin-to-win. This is the side of big air where we’re starting to see alternative-progression: buttered take-offs, pull-backs and rewinds, riskier rodeo rotations, etc.

The tricky task we have as judges is trying to balance where those lower-rotational tricks (but no less difficult) fit on a scale against the traditional rotations. And that’s why we’ve spent so much time and effort interacting with the community to develop a common understanding of how difficult a switch backside double rodeo 1260 is (for example), in comparison to a 1620/1800/1980. 

And we, as judges, are happy to reward both avenues, as long as the rest of the criteria are fulfilled. We don’t want to be the ones to dictate the direction snowboarding goes in, so we just go back to the safety of our criteria and rank accordingly.

In Summary

Good trick = good score

Bad trick = bad score

So that’s it, a bit of a rundown of how Big Air is going to look in Livigno, and what we as a judging crew are looking for and evaluating.