A group of 16 world-class freestyle judges met last weekend in Golden, British Columbia at a clinic held to discuss how best to judge freestyle snowboarding competitions.

Hosted by Great Canadian Heli-Skiing, the 2009 FIS North American Freestyle Judge Clinic featured 2010 Winter Olympics judges, including international judge educator Marcello Centurione. He is the only North American chosen to be one of five scoring judges for the freestyle halfpipe snowboard event during the upcoming Vancouver Olympics.

Progression was the main topic of discussion at the clinic. Progression is one of eight criteria that a judge takes into account when scoring a rider along with Amplitude, Execution, Variety, Difficulty, Risk, Combos and Pipe Use. In judged sports other than snowboarding, competitors must announce which manoeuvres they are going to perform, or have a degree of difficulty assigned to them, but not in snowboarding. This freedom given to the riders to express themselves makes it complicated for judges to score a run when a rider ‘throws down’ a trick that may have never been seen before.

If snowboarding superstars such as Shaun White and Canada’s own Jeff Batchelor unleash tricks never seen before, Marcello and his fellow Olympic judges will need to be ready for them, despite maybe never seeing the trick before in live competition. In the clinic they discussed the various potential ways riders can grab, cork, invert and spin themselves and their boards and how they would thus score them. No matter what new trick a rider pulls out, the judging team will be prepared to score them fairly. This allows snowboarding to retain its freestyle image and reward progression while incorporating some structure.

“The great thing about snowboarding is that it’s all about freedom of expression,” said Marcello, who judged at the last Winter Games in Torino and is North America’s most experienced snowboard judge with over 50 world class events under his belt. He specifically selected Great Canadian Heli-Skiing as the venue of choice as it is the perfect location to discuss the latest trends in judging while at the same time feeding the judges’ passion for snowboarding.

The 2010 Olympic Halfpipe events will be held at Cypress Mountain on February 17th and 18th.

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