I feel similarly, but as you word it I disagree. I'd say having to swallow someone else's subjective interpretation, of what is essentially an artistic sporting event, as if it's some sort of real metric is preposterous. Obviously. The only real consideration I give those numbers is just how differently the judges see things, how they value them, to me. I just appreciate the riding.
To throw the judges a bone though, they're handcuffed to some degree. The weight to the final score is what really determines this bias towards tricks etc. Perhaps the judges are happy with the weighting, but whether or not that's the case, they are stuck with it. If 1/4 of the final score is trick based, and someone only does 3 tricks of moderate difficulty and another does 6 of similar difficulty, assuming similar variety, they have to double that portion of the score. Or double the difficulty, in overly simple terms. Technicality simply doesn't have the same kind of dynamic range, even though some people like me might be very interested in that and therefore discriminating in how we see those aspects, it would be a hard case to make that Brendan's line was two or three times harder than anyones. Especially considering that all runs are technically insane, buffed or not. Like, who here is gonna ride any of them. A very small number at best. Anyway, that seems to be a reasonable explanation of how the technical bicycle riding, as opposed to technical trickery, seems to not contribute as significantly to the score as people like me would prefer. I just hope they weight it enough to keep tech riders interested and able to compete.
As an aside, why do these scores get quantified with a 100 point maximum? Is it to keep it mysterious? To torture the judges on their first few scores as they calibrate scores for the day and hope no one truly blows their minds? I know I've got an unusually logical perspective, but it strikes me that having some sort of standardised value for the components making up the criteria is hard to argue against. Just sum it all up and while it's still subjective, it's easier to understand and justify. And progression could actually be quantified year on year as scores grow. I'm just barking at the moon, I know...
Oct. 31, 2018, 11:28 p.m. - natbrown
I feel similarly, but as you word it I disagree. I'd say having to swallow someone else's subjective interpretation, of what is essentially an artistic sporting event, as if it's some sort of real metric is preposterous. Obviously. The only real consideration I give those numbers is just how differently the judges see things, how they value them, to me. I just appreciate the riding. To throw the judges a bone though, they're handcuffed to some degree. The weight to the final score is what really determines this bias towards tricks etc. Perhaps the judges are happy with the weighting, but whether or not that's the case, they are stuck with it. If 1/4 of the final score is trick based, and someone only does 3 tricks of moderate difficulty and another does 6 of similar difficulty, assuming similar variety, they have to double that portion of the score. Or double the difficulty, in overly simple terms. Technicality simply doesn't have the same kind of dynamic range, even though some people like me might be very interested in that and therefore discriminating in how we see those aspects, it would be a hard case to make that Brendan's line was two or three times harder than anyones. Especially considering that all runs are technically insane, buffed or not. Like, who here is gonna ride any of them. A very small number at best. Anyway, that seems to be a reasonable explanation of how the technical bicycle riding, as opposed to technical trickery, seems to not contribute as significantly to the score as people like me would prefer. I just hope they weight it enough to keep tech riders interested and able to compete. As an aside, why do these scores get quantified with a 100 point maximum? Is it to keep it mysterious? To torture the judges on their first few scores as they calibrate scores for the day and hope no one truly blows their minds? I know I've got an unusually logical perspective, but it strikes me that having some sort of standardised value for the components making up the criteria is hard to argue against. Just sum it all up and while it's still subjective, it's easier to understand and justify. And progression could actually be quantified year on year as scores grow. I'm just barking at the moon, I know...