| Of all the subjective sports – and
in action sports, that means all of them – rollerblading stands
out as the most fair. Sure, rollerbladers have gripes. They fume, scream
and even bombard the judges’ tower with water bottles. But at the
end of the day, when the scores come in and the results are posted, everyone
is generally in agreement.
So what makes the rollerblading system such a paragon of ethics? It
could be the fact that all the judges were skaters themselves at one time,
and continue to stoke the fires of involvement in their industry. It could
be that the skaters themselves are involved with the criteria, even as
the winds of change sweep through the competitive landscape. Or it could
be system itself.
Difficulty – The harder an athlete’s tricks, the higher the
score. A 720 is more difficult than a 360. A ten foot air is more difficult
than a five foot. It becomes more difficult to weigh a backside unity
vs. a topside pornstar, but that’s where the next three come in.
Consistency – A skater has to stay on his feet to get full credit
for a trick. Of course, there are shades of gray. “Sketching”
the trick by putting a hand down or stepping out is considered more consistent
than a fall, but scores less than a perfect execution.
Style – It’s hard to put it into words, but style is a characteristic
that some judges consider to be the most important. Simply put, a skater
should make skating look good. How that gets interpreted is up to the
individual judge.
Line – Whether on the street course or the vert ramp, a skater
should put together a line of tricks that makes full use of his/her run
time. A skater is considered to have a good line if s/he executes many
different tricks over many different obstacles.
And then there is that feeling. “Sweaty palms,” head judge
Ethan Jenkins calls it. “At the end of a run, I want to have sweaty
palms and I should wonder where all the time went.”
It isn’t a science, but a mathematical art. When the scores are
in, the skaters who win are the ones taking the sport to a new level.
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