marc jacobs kota - pushed harder than anyone

[prop_joe]

Jumped the shark just there

Reminds me of the kid at school that owns the ball and takes it away when his team starts losing. It's the hypocrisy that really gets me.

[Faxie]

I saw him write a very complimentary congratulations to Kevin L regarding his KOTA win, on his insta.

There is no doubt the rules counted against trick progression/innovation, seemed more so this year. Think about Aarons KGB megaloop a few years ago - way lower, but won. The maths of 70/30 today make innovation a waste of time.

Its totally fair to comment on IMO. Judging should be fully transparent, with scoring examples, opportunity to talk to the trained judges about what they are looking for and exactly how they will calculate the final score based on the 70/30 rule based on height difference /trick(rather than guess), otherwise an already subjective judging system becomes even more subjective.

The ski rescue looked an awesome improvement as well as the scoring system. The KOTA needs more judging transparency imo - just telling everyone 70\30 just means nothing. WSL made things super transparent - has made the comps way better than they used to be when everyone was arguing whether Kelly or Andy should have won due to too much subjectivity

Next year they won't even bother kitelooping, and just go for height with 10's or 11's.

[longwhitecloud]

Absolutely - if looping only counts for 30% - why even bother, it seems to me that a big loop scored higher than a higher rotation. Their maths says that should not be like that.

Judging transparency is needed, it is too vague. I wouldnt want to be training hard for a competition where someones random opinion of the day decides the result.

[Tone]

For sure I think he was robbed.

The power and angle of the tricks he was doing was insane, as was the risk.

I wonder how it would have gone down if there had been 35-45 knots of wind

[james]

So the issue is that king of the air has a height bias...

What bias does the mega loop challenge have I wonder...

If people can’t work out that throwing “lower”(height) tech tricks in a big air contest is going to get their favourite rider shit canned then there is no hope..

[Snapback]

so it should be just straight jump as high as possible and some dangly grab/rotations?

[james]

No, but given the % split for the scoring how is it a surprise that going big scores high?

[Faxie]

No, but given the % split for the scoring how is it a surprise that going big scores high?

Sure. But a 25m jump with only a boardoff shouldn't count higher than a 15m megaloop rotation boardoff with a handlepass afterwards for instance. With the 70-30 rule, it would.

[james]

So what is your point? The criteria are set out, known by the riders and they have to execute accordingly

Bitching that your fav riders didn’t ride to the agreed criteria makes no sense.

If the riders don’t like it then they need to take it up with Redbull and the judges for the next event.

It’s an event about “air” and the split reflects it.

[jumptheshark]

It's not that he doesn't have it figured out, its that he has no choice. Marc is by kiteboarding standards a heavyweight. If he wasn't you can bet he would be going for height, but he doesn't really have that option unless it downright nukes most of the smaller guys off the water. Dude has no other option than to go for something lower and hope to impress with the power and timing of his move/loop.