Last week Red
Bull X Fighters pulled together a collection of professional FMX riders and
creditable industry people to help re-evaluate the current judging system with
the aim to come up with a fairer one that can help steer the future of
freestyle motocross in a positive direction.
The Red Bull judging clinic, one step close to getting FMX judging on the right track
How many times have you been to an
FMX competition and thought to yourself, “How did that rider walk away with the
gold medal? There’s no way he deserved to win!”
Judging in any sport is often
surrounded by controversy, especially at the top level where an athlete’s
career is at stake. One bad decision from a judge can see a rider fall out of
medal/podium contention, a scenario that not only affects the riders income for
the event, but one that also causes frustration and doubt in the system. And
not forgetting denting a riders negotiating power when signing new sponsorship
contracts, like who remembers the reason why you finished 7th
instead of 2nd at X Games? It’s the results on paper where it counts
brother!
One recent example is Bilko not
winning Gold in Big Air at 2009 X Games. Many asked the same question, “How did
Kyle Loza win Gold with the same trick he won Gold with in 2008 when Bilko
executed something new, and gnarly?” What the?
Another example was at the last
round of X-Fighters in London, 2009. Nate Adams took the win over Levi Sherwood
in the final, which was for many not a popular decision, and afterwards even
Nate was surprised he’d won. Reviewing the runs Levi looked to have the more
impressive run although he did execute many similar looking tricks, where as
Nate didn’t produce the run we’d all expect of him but did have a good
variation of tricks and showed good use of the course.
This raised questions: Did the
judges mark Levi down for a lack of variation and reward Nate for variation and
Use Of Course? How does the judging criteria work?
According to X-Fighters head judge
Regis Harrington, “There’s always going to be debate on whether Nate deserved
to win or not. Personally, I didn’t think he won, and what makes it harder on
us is he didn’t think he won. It just seemed like there was a lot of
miscommunication and the judges weren’t on the same page that night, and for me
that’s what was so frustrating, especially as we’d been working hard to improve
the system.”
Whether it be through human error,
miscommunication, a biased decision, whatever, one thing became very clear
after the final X-Fighters round, and that was things needed to improve with
judging before the 2010 season got underway.
ENTER RED BULL X-FIGHTERS FMX JUDGES CLINIC, JANUARY
10-12, 2010
Before New Years Eve hangovers had
time to settle, Tes Sewell (X-Fighters Sport Director) and his
right-hand-make-it-happen-gal Jane Dullum, had invites emailed and flights
locked in for riders and industry people from all corners of the globe to
attend the judging clinic at Red Bull’s Santa Monica headquarters.
The aim:To review the current status
of the FMX judging program for X-Fighters and deliver new guidelines for 2010.
Those attending the clinic were
FMX riders Matt Rebeaud, Andre Villa, Alvaro Dal Fara, Busty Wolter, FMX
rider/judge Drake McElroy, rider agents Russ Stratton (Rebeaud, Levi Sherwood)
Jimmy Button (Bilko, Nate Adams, Mike Mason, Adam Jones) and Lucas Mirtl (Jim
McNeil, Libor Podmol), plus X-Fighters head judge Regis Harrington, course
designer Dane Herron, and ex-riders/industry dudes Jason Moriarty (South
Africa), Brody Henricksen (NZ), and myself from Oz.
With all these wise heads in one
room working towards a common goal the outcome was bound to push judging in the
much-needed positive direction it required.
Led by Tes and Red Bulls
Performance manager Andy Walshe, the first day of the clinic focused on an
overview of judging that highlighted, to name a few, things like how easy it is
to let something slip under the radar when judging if you’re not specifically
looking for it, and the affects patriotism has on judging, and the “Pastrana
Affect” – just how did he win all those FMX battles, was he really unbeatable
or did the judging criteria in place highly reward the wow factor a rider like
Pastrana has? Open discussions were also an integral part of the day’s process,
plus we were introduced to the proposed 2010 judging criteria, that was open
for change as the two-day clinic progressed.
Nothing was left off the table.
Riders had the chance to vent any frustrations they had about judging, and give
feedback from a rider’s perspective. The likes of Button and Stratton – two men
carrying a lot of responsibility for their own rider’s future – were sharp as a
knife and didn’t hold back when it came to asking questions or offering
insights that would ultimately help their guys and riders in general. Regis, the
most experienced man in FMX judging (eight years) was put on the spot several
times, but there was no pointing the finger at anyone for previous mistakes,
only focus on trying to blow out the cobwebs to make way for a new solid
foundation to work from in 2010.
Day two saw the attendance
stripped back to the core team of possible judges for 2010. Excluding Jimmy
Verburgh (Belgium), Morgan Carlson (Spain) and Gaspar Jose (Brazil), who
couldn’t make the clinic for one reason or another, on hand were Regis, Drake,
Busty, Alvaro, Jason, Brody and myself.
Tes and Andy led the days
proceedings once again that saw us clarify each judging criteria and exactly
what each judge will look for in a riders run (Tes will officially release the
criteria before the X-Fighters Ranking Session gets underway), and several
hours spent testing out the judging criteria’s using video footage of runs from
previous X-Fighters competitions.
Overall at the end of the two days
the aim of coming up with a judging system that is fairer for all riders – one
that rewards a rider who shows more variety of tricks in his run, while at the
same time shows creative use of course, style, good execution, challenge, and
showmanship – was a lot closer to being achieved.
For the 2010 series each rider
will have a clearer picture of how they will be judged and can tailor their
runs accordingly.
And another huge step forward is
the introduction of judges being accountable for their scores. Gone are the
days where one judge can hide behind another. Each judge will have to back up
his score so that any rider who questions it will know exactly why he lost
points in any particular category, and can improve on it for the following
round.
From where I’m standing it’s clear
Red Bull X-Fighters is committed to taking the judging of FMX events to the
next level, a positive step forward, and one all riders, industry personal, and
fans will hopefully benefit from. Watch this space!
FMX riders, rider agents, and industry heads all working towards perfecting the judging system, well as close as possible.
Drake McElroy and myself hitting the coffee straight up before the clinic got underway, each morning!
Busty and I scored the rockstar pad, and Alvaro doesn't seem to happy about it..LOL!
And we got time out to catch Anaheim 1, scored again with good seats, on a roll!
