AI judging used covertly for Men’s X Games Slopestyle?

 After a weather affected morning, the start was pushed back by over four hours and even when the contest got going the conditions on course were tough. Fresh snow and wind made speed a limiting factor and forced the unwelcome return of the taped pants that plagued the Laax Open. But the horrible wardrobe was far from the biggest talking point.

It was immediately clear after the first two runs that the contest could be an error fest, with the snow running like glue and more wind than at a burrito bar in a trucker stop. Konnor Ralph was the first to successfully put a run down—albeit it one that would barely make finals at some Europa Cups—which included back-to-back double cork 1080 and 1260 safeties.

Colby Stevenson would hold the lead for almost all of the first round, with a run that included an alley-oop 720 tail, but more importantly at the time, no errors. That was until last year’s gold medalist, Luca Harrington dropped in. 

However, this is when it first became apparent that AI really has infiltrated just about everything. Fresh off the back of being fooled by some  “Day After Tomorrow” sized snow drifts in Russia, many were keeping a keen eye out for anything AI generated.

Suspicions were triggered when Luca hit an SSX style boost ramp on the first kicker and, where most of the field had been struggling for amplitude, boosted a triple flatspin (backflip) 1080 safety to the moon. He would unsubtly back this up with a switch triple 1260 at the bottom. Despite the on-screen illusions, Luca’s massive early-off the first rail indicated to any sentient lifeform that his score would be limited, regardless of what else came after it…until the score came in. Luca finished the first run out in the lead having missed a good two meters of rail real estate. Something seemed off.

All would be put right in the second run though, right?

Normality, reality and sense of calm was immediately restored by Hunter Henderson who put down the cleanest, if not one of the most basic runs of the day. He went into first place having ridden all of his rails to the end and grabbed all his grabs.

The following runs would be full of DNI’s or mistakes big enough to not trouble the top scores already set in the first runs. Everything seemed back to normal, and at least Luca wasn’t going to win with a massive early-off—judge-bashing keyboard warriors stand down. 

Unfortunately, peace was short-lived. 

Birk Ruud would make a very similar mistake to Luca, slipping off almost half way down the first rail—an unmissable mistake. The rest of his run was admittedly pure fire. A switch 270 up onto the top of the wall to switch continuing switch 270 onto the down rail took feet as fast as Messi to pull off. Followed by an aggressive right 450 pretzel 450, and back-to-back 1620’s at the bottom, it was impossible to argue against—apart from the early off. However, a clear coding error must have created a blindspot on the first rail, which was once again missed by the judging algorithm as Birk went into first place.

Alex Hall would momentarily put things right, lacing a run only AHall could dream up—or pull off. Full of creativity, Alex flows through features in an almost lackadaisical fashion. His left carved alley-oop double cork 1260 safety was a thing of beauty, only to be immediately bettered by a switch left 720 mute to knuckle bounce 180. He would be rightly rewarded with first place for linking multiple low-probability tricks.

On an absolute heater, Mac Forehand might have thrown away an amazing chance to take away X Games gold, when he missed the grab on his final switch left triple 1620. He would still slip himself into 4th place though with an 87.33.

Mr. Consistent, Andri Ragettli would throw his hat in the ring and mix up the standings to go into second place with a fairly signature blend of technicality and cleanliness, finishing with his classic switch double bio 1260 mute—a no-doubt dumbed down run to match the conditions. 

This left Luca and Colby at the top waiting to drop. Luca would drop in first, and lace probably the run of his life, which was astonishing considering the struggles everyone else was having with speed. Maybe the tape around his knees needs investigation because somewhere Luca found about 4 meters more amplitude than anyone else on the first jump and floated around a triple cork 1440 safety. He also upgraded his final jump to a switch triple 1440 and was bouncing around the finish area as his score came in as a 94.33 and first place.

With the algorithm rewarding the jumps so heavily, Colby was going to need the run of his life to knock Luca off the top spot. He started strongly with possibly the best rail run of the day. A right foot back 360 swap transfer continuing back 450, to switch left 270 onto the top of the wallride, to switch tails on pretzel back 270 out, into a textbook right 450 pretzel 450 out. However, he would get a little too friendly with the knuckle on a switch 1080 mute on the second jump, and despite landing a switch 1440 exactly how Tom Wallisch would’ve, it was not going to be enough to prevent Luca from becoming the fourth ever male to defend their X Games slopestyle gold.

In the end, the judging robots generated what could be argued was the correct ranking, but much like most AI models, the way it got there raised more questions than answers.