{"id":803494,"date":"2020-01-26T19:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T02:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=378069"},"modified":"2020-01-26T19:00:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T02:00:50","slug":"olivero-x-games-aspen-new-competition-format-an-experiment-in-scoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/olivero-x-games-aspen-new-competition-format-an-experiment-in-scoring\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivero: X Games Aspen new competition format an experiment in scoring"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Chris Corning competes in the men\u2019s snowboard big air elimination round at X Games Aspen on Friday at Buttermilk Ski Area in Aspen.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

ASPEN \u2014 It\u2019s not often that there\u2019s a competition in sports without a transparent scoring or timing system. This week at X Games Aspen has been a case study \u2014 an experiment, almost \u2014 in how competitions can go for athletes and audience alike when there is no explicit scoring for the competitors and fans to reference during and after contests.<\/p>\n

X Games Aspen opted for a \u201cjam\u201d competition format for this year\u2019s event. Essentially that meant all athletes in skiing and snowboarding competitions ran through the big air, slopestyle or superpipe courses one after the other for a set amount of time. Once the clock expired, any athletes who had not had their chance in that round of runs got a final opportunity to have the same amount of attempts as the other competitors.<\/p>\n

As the jam clock counted down, and after each athlete finished each run during the overall timed round, the X Games broadcast updated an unofficial top-to-bottom ranking of the active athletes. On top of that, the scoreboard only presented the order of the athletes, sans transparent scoring. The athletes were scored based on what the X Games described as \u201coverall impression\u201d instead of having an explicit score on the screen.<\/p>\n

In the past X Games has used a jam format for some competitions, such as the big air. But in those years, athletes and fans saw scores for each jump flash up on the screen next to the athletes\u2019 rank. This year, the jam format was brand-new for slopestyle and superpipe. Traditionally, those competitions have operated in the Olympic style. That traditional Olympic and World Cup format has a set number of attempts for each athlete, typically two or three. Athletes then typically have one or two specific runs count toward their score. They see their score after each attempt.<\/p>\n

The change in this year\u2019s scoring and competition format had mixed reviews from the athletes. On the positive side, men\u2019s snowboard slopestyle gold medalist Darcy Sharpe said he thought the change allowed for more creativity and opportunity for athletes to mess up somewhere on the course and not worry about it instantly tanking their chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have stayed true to this from the start,\u201d the Canadian star said. \u201cI absolutely love the format. It\u2019s insane. It\u2019s like, when I was a kid I would get post-X Games depression. Straight up, I\u2019d be like so sad. There\u2019d be two runs done, and I\u2019d be like, \u2018no. It\u2019s over already.\u2019 Now, you get to watch riding the whole contest. If somebody falls, they can still do tricks. And I think it gives us a mindset of, like, practice is funner. You\u2019re not just doing one line practicing the same thing over and over again like a little robot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpe\u2019s result in the new format may have been the most interesting and surprising of the entire X Games. After three runs, Sharpe was in dead-last entering his final run. After a great run, he soared into first. The unofficial scoreboard flashed the change seconds after the guy who was in first, Red Gerard of Summit County, dropped in for his run seemingly unaware of the score change.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Gerard said he wasn\u2019t giving the score or format too much thought. His bigger focus was staying in the moment, not worrying about the score and riding as well as he could. He ended up with a bronze medal.<\/p>\n

Darcy Sharpe\u2019s older sister Cassie Sharpe won a bronze in ski superpipe after landing a final run some thought, in the moment, may have been enough to leapfrog her over Kelly Sildaru for gold. Afterward, Cassie Sharpe echoed a sentiment of many athletes this week, including Canadian Mark McMorris \u2014 who took silver in big air Saturday night \u2014 and Summit County snowboarder Chris Corning. Without explicit scores, she said, it\u2019s hard to know what exactly you need to do or what else you should have done.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get variation, you get all these things that are amazing with it,\u201d Cassie Sharpe said, \u201cBut they don\u2019t have a solid way of saying you need to do this to win. It\u2019s kind of like you\u2019re blind.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Corning excruciatingly missed the cut for the snowboard big air final, he put it in context from his perspective, saying he and his U.S. Snowboard Team Coaches Mike Ramirez and Dave Reynolds didn\u2019t know what the judges wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard, because you don\u2019t know where you\u2019re sitting,\u201d Corning said. \u201cYou know you\u2019re under them, but you don\u2019t know how far you are under them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of the new format helping with progressing snowboarding and freeskiing, there was differing opinions from two U.S. athletes. On one hand, American Maggie Voisin, who took a bronze medal in ski slopestyle Sunday, said she felt the traditional format forces progression more because she thinks focusing on one run pushes athletes further. American halfpipe freeski star Aaron Blunck of Crested Butte thinks the new format makes athletes have to be more versatile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get so caught up with that one-run format,\u201d Blunck said, \u201cso everyone works for that one run. It\u2019s really cool to be able to go into it all and do everything and change who you are as a skier and show who you are at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen Times Sports Editor Austin Colbert and Steamboat Pilot & Today Sports Editor Shelby Reardon contributed reporting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Corning competes in the men\u2019s snowboard big air elimination round at X Games Aspen on Friday at Buttermilk Ski Area in Aspen.Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com ASPEN \u2014 It\u2019s not often that there\u2019s a competition in sports without a transparent scoring or timing system. This week at X Games Aspen has been a case study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-25 13:33:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}