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All Rise | Olympic Head Snowboard Judge Explains What Happened During The Slopestyle Finals

Iztok Sumatic, the Head Judge for Olympic Snowboarding, gives us his perspective on what happened during Monday's controversial result

It’s almost inevitable that judges’ decisions will be debated after contests – especially when Olympic glory is on the line. But it’s hard to remember a judging call that stirred up quite as much chatter – or as much vitriol – as the decision to award the slopestyle gold to Max Parrot on Monday.

As Ed Leigh said on the BBC commentary, it was fairly obvious that a mistake had been made. And the internet – which rarely sees things in shades of gray – quickly decided who was to blame. But as I listened to the rants and scrolled past the inevitable memes about the evils of judges and judging, something didn’t seem to add up.

“It’s hard to remember a judging call that stirred up quite as much chatter – or as much vitriol – as the decision to award the slopestyle gold to Max Parrot on Monday”

I first spoke to Iztok Sumatic, the head judge in Beijing, after Sochi 2014, when anyone who worked with the FIS was still considered, in some corners of the snowboarding world, to be the spawn of the devil. We’ve met at a couple of contests – and shared more than a couple of beers – in the years since, and I’ve consistently found myself impressed by his deep knowledge of the sport, his awareness of judges’ role in shaping its direction, and his unimpeachable integrity. He’s a skateboarder first, a style-conscious snowboarder second, and a man who takes his position at the pinnacle of professional snowboarding’s refereeing structure extremely seriously.

The idea that he and his team would either be careless enough to let something that big slip, or worse still, be deliberately conspiring to bring snowboarding down, just didn’t make sense. So after a bit of back and forth on WhatsApp, I called him up, to get his side of the story.

Iztok Sumatik – Head Olympic Snowboard Judge

Hey Iztok, how are you doing?

Well, surprisingly alright today. Yesterday was pretty tough, for everyone. There were these comments or mails or texts which were err… pretty frank and honest. [laughs] But we’re professionals, we gotta take the heat – even though it’s not our fault. 

“There were a lot of comments and emails and private messages and texts. It’s amazing to me that some people would go and search out emails, or personal telephone numbers, just to send shit to the judges, but they did”

When you say ‘take the heat’, what have people been saying to you? 

Phew. Well, there were a lot of comments and emails and private messages and texts. It’s amazing to me that some people would go and search out emails, or personal telephone numbers, just to send shit to the judges, but they did.

I understand the emotions, it’s just a problem that people don’t think before they comment. If you look at it from a rational point of view, these are some of the most experienced judges in the world. They have done US Opens, X Games, Dew Tours… anyone who thinks that this group of judges would reward a knee grab isn’t thinking straight.

I should also say though, we’ve had a lot of support from people who know what’s up. I showed you that screenshot of the message from Su Yiming’s coach, and [French pro] Matthieu Crepel and Liam Griffin [Travis Rice’s partner in the Natural Selection, and a long-standing contest director] both posted publicly. 

Liam’s Griffin’s social media story, posted on Monday 7th Feb 2022, after the slopestyle results

So what did happen then?

Well, basically, we judged what we saw. And what we saw was a grab and a well executed switch frontside 16 – from the point of view of a camera that we were given. That’s the first thing to say. The second thing that is important to mention is that we need to make a decision in seconds, because it’s live. We are being pushed to be on time. We need to put the score as soon as possible, so everything is coordinated with the whole show. 

Some judgements do take longer though right? I remember Jenny Jones’ score taking ages at Sochi in 2014, for example. Do you have a cut off period? 

Yeh, here’s the deal. We are entitled to have a replay wherever we think something went wrong. Just to scrutinise it a little bit more… 

Did you get the replay on this?

No, we didn’t get it. We just had this camera angle that they gave us and it looked clean. It wasn’t just us, there were coaches we spoke to after who said: “hey, when we saw that, we were like ‘bam, this is an insane run.’” Not just because of that one trick, because everything Max did was super clean and super good. Like I said, we judged what we saw and everyone felt confident with it.

“We just had this camera angle that they gave us and it looked clean”

So normally, if you thought there was something wrong, you would say ‘can I get a replay on that feature?’ And in this case, because you only saw the one feed, no-one even asked to see a replay of that trick, because it looked clean? 

Yeah. Once again, this was the angle we were given on that. And whoever watched it from that angle, almost every single person – if he or she was being honest – would have said that’s a good execution.

So when did you see the image that people saw on their TV screens? 

Well, too late. When the score was already in. When the score was already processed.

The all-important second angle in the replays revealed the knee grab, but the judges were not able to see this until after the score was submitted.

“All I can say, in Max’s defense, regarding this specific run, is that it was still an insane run. He killed it, especially on the rails”

What was the conversation in the judging box then? 

Well, of course, it was like “damn this is something from an angle we haven’t seen”. But I read an article by one of your colleagues on Whitelines where he compared it to Maradona scoring the Hand of God goal in Mexico ’86. It was like that. The referee hadn’t seen it, but he made a decision, and you can’t change it afterwards. It’s live scoring – we have to score from the live feeds. That was the angle we were given, and it felt like a legit trick from that point of view. 

If you’d seen he missed the grab I guess the score would’ve been different?

It would be different scores yes. But there are so many factors. All I can say, in Max’s defense, regarding this specific run, is that it was still an insane run. He killed it, especially on the rails.

How many people were watching the run? You have nine scoring judges right? 

Yes – six section judges, two per feature, and three overall impression judges. So there was like, five scoring judges watching that trick. Two judges specifically watching that trick, and then the three overall impression judges too. And then me, the head judge [who doesn’t score, but oversees the process]. That should be enough to tell you there’s obviously something wrong. Like I said, these are super experienced judges. If there’s a group rewarding something that obviously shouldn’t be rewarded, then there must be something wrong.

I can see, in those circumstances, how mistakes could happen. So if there’s a fault, what you’re saying is that your judges weren’t given the right feed? 

[Laughs] I can’t comment on that now. I don’t want to create a potential environment that could affect our judging. We have another 10 days where we’re going to judge eight competitions – qualis and finals in halfpipe and then in big air – and we should be focussed on judging right now, and not on all this drama. I don’t want to open this Pandora’s box to put any extra pressure on my team, or create something that would be a bone for media, or social media. This would just keep on going. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to give interviews to many people. 

“These are the facts: We judged what we saw, this is live scoring, and we judged from a specific media angle that we were given”

Snowboarders love a conspiracy theory though…  

Yeah. Of course it hurts. In a world that’s already crazy, the least of what we want is being hated among each other within a community that’s supposed to be a community. It hurt me, because I was thinking, was there anything I could have done as a head judge to avoid such a thing? And you know, there wasn’t.

After this is all over, I’m definitely going to speak my mind on what I think could improve, and what could help us. But these are the facts: We judged what we saw, this is live scoring, and we judged from a specific media angle that we were given.

Thanks for clearing things up Iztok

Thank you – we appreciate the support. 

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