Kirsty Muir wins X Games gold after two years out

After the highly divisive men’s slopestyle yesterday, where big errors seemed to be overlooked in favour of big spins, and with the sun shining, everyone was hoping for a less contentious women’s slopestyle. The judges had other ideas though. 

The field of women had been reduced to just five, after Olivia Asselin, Grace Elden and Marin Hamill all pulled out with injury. This left just Kirsty Muir, Mathilde Gremaud, Naomi Urness, Anni Kärävä and Megan Oldham to take on the amazing course in some of the best conditions of the weekend.

The contest was effectively a one run shootout, with all but Anni unable to improve on their first runs, with Anni only able to improve her score at the bottom of the pack. All other four riders would put down their best run first pull, subsequently making bigger errors and getting stung with the dreaded DNI.

Just to be clear, there is absolutely no controversy surrounding Scottish skier Kirsty’s win. She put down an almost flawless run that was miles ahead of the rest of the field. She started with a left 270 continuing front 270, switch left 270 pretzel 450 out and right foot back 450 on the rails, all as clean as you like. In the jumps she went switch left alley-oop 540 japan and then, for the first time in her career, linked back-to-back doubles with an unnatural right double cork 1080 safety into a left double cork 1440 cindy. She was hooked up with a 93.66 that no one was able to get anywhere near for the rest of the competition.

The contention is surrounding the other two steps of the podium. Naomi Urness put down a pretty flawless run: right 270 on, left foot front 270 out, switch right 270 on to forward, left alley-oop 540 touch lead safety, switch right 540 japan and finished with a right double 1080 safety. Flawless, but certainly lacking in terms of progression and difficulty in an elite women’s contest. At the end of the day this run was good enough for a silver medal, which on its merit would not be an issue.

In order to understand why the ranking has caused more outcry, Naomi’s run needs to be compared to Mathilde’s. Mathilde crushed the rail section starting off to be the only woman to hit the transfer rail going for front swap pretzel 270, switch left 270 pretzel 450 and left foot K-Fed (front swap continuing back 270). Mathilde’s jumps were a left alley-oop 720 lead tail, right alley-oop bio 900 safety and a switch double cork 1080 on the final jump—this is where she got harshed. Mathilde maybe tickled the grab for a moment on the switch 10, if you are being generous, and she punched the landing as she was trying to control an over rotation. The judges put this run into third place, below Naomi.

The whole argument rests on how you see the error of the no grab and hand punch, versus the overall advantage in difficulty and progression that Mathilde’s run has. Maybe there was some hangover or subconscious overcorrection in the booth from the day before, when errors were overlooked in favour of rewarding progression, amplitude and difficulty. On this occasion though, the judges have decided to reward a far more simple, clean run over a run that could be argued beats it in four out of five of the judging criteria—all bar the execution of the final jump.

Nothing should be taken away from Naomi, by no means, but there is an argument that the sport is all about progression and there is a danger that if riders get severely punished for making small errors on significantly superior runs, they will opt to play it safe and pull punches—something we can all agree we do not want to see.

It could be argued that the gulf between both the difficulty and progression of the two rail runs eclipses the error that Mathilde made on the last jump and she should have been second. Conversely, it could be argued that her no grab and supporting hand punch was egregious enough to justify ranking her below Naomi. Thus is the beauty of this subjective sport.