Max Parrot just bested a very stacked field of riders to take the top spot in the men’s Olympic Slopestyle final after putting down a helluva run to receive a score of 90.96. Only one problem though- he missed a grab at a crucial moment and wasn’t scored down for it in one of the most controversial judging oversights in the history of snowboarding.
There’s not much that can be said about the whole fiasco except ‘nope’. Slopestyle is already blurring the lines with Big Air, with judges favouring increasingly groan-inducing spins on the jump section rather than style, creativity and flow. Add #KneeGate into the mix and you’ve got one hell of a (shit)show.
This isn’t a dig at Max Parrot, he didn’t ask the judges to do this but regardless, this is bad for snowboarding. Mark and Su Yiming aren’t the only ones who took a beating today, China’s reputation as a surveillance state has been left in tatters after a technological failure that will go down in history a la Diego Maradona’s Hand Of God as one of the worst calls we’ll see in sport.
People are pissed at the results, possibly none more so (at least publicly) than Chris Grenier:
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