People Believe United States Big Air Freestyle Skier Mac Forehand Was ROBBED of Gold Medal By Bias Judges Thanks To Something Called a "Nose Butter"
In good conscious, I had to throw in a "People Believe" at the front of that title. I watched the Men's Big Air Freestyle event. But when I watch that event, I think every jump that ends with the skier standing upright is worthy of perfect score. That's the beauty of the Olympics. We get to enjoy sports we would probably never pay attention to elsewhere. So it would be bullshit of me to pretend I'm qualified to discern Big Air Freestyle tricks down to fractions of a point.
On the other hand... when I watched that event... I kinda felt like the United States was fucking robbed by some biased ass judges on the take in exchange for a timeshare in Hemsedal.
Here's the full YouTube highlight of the Big Air Freestyle showdown between United States' Mac Forehand, and Norway's Tormod Frostad. There's also an Austrian, Matej Svancer featured in the highlight. He won the bronze.
Maybe I'm biased as an American, but I thought Mac's tricks looked better. Heading into his last jump, he needed a 97.25 to take over first place. A score higher than anybody had achieved all competition long. And he did it. He stepped up and dropped a 98.25 on a trick that the announcer claimed has never been done before.
It was the first time Mac had even attempted that trick.
After that, it all came down to Norway's final jump. Tormod Frostad needed a 96.25 to take back first place. And he did a trick that quite frankly looked significantly worse than Mac's. It had lower degree of rotation than Mac's. The layman thought Mac should have been the clear winner.
However, as Tormod goes into his jump, he does something called a "nose butter". He leans forward on his toes, presses the tips of his skis into the snow, and starts his turn before he reaches the end of the ramp. Here's an example from YouTube.
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So it all comes down to judge's preference. Tormod Frostad was doing a pre-jump nose butter in a way that nobody else was. How many points is a nose butter worth? Nobody knows. Big Air Freestyle scoring isn't an exact science. Tormod's jump sure didn't look as impressive as Mac's from a distance. But it's up to the judges to decide how many additional points Tormod gets for his big fancy NB's.
As it turned out, the nose butters were plenty enough to win Norway the gold.
You can hear it in the commentators voices. They didn't seem to think that trick was worthy of overtaking first place. Tormod spins less than everyone else while in the air. To me, his final trick didn't look anymore impressive than the tricks he landed earlier that earned a 95.25 and 97.00. But hey… he did the nose butter thing really well. Judges love nose butters.
As you might imagine, many folks, especially American folks, did not take kindly to the judge's decision.
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You get the point. It seemed pretty clear to a person who doesn't know snow that Mac Forehand deserved to win gold for the United States. But again… we just don't appreciate the value of the butter.
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God damn it, Mac. That's not very American of you. You're not supposed to accept the judge's decision with grace. If I've learned anything from the behavior I see in the sports I'm used to watching, when calls don't go your way, you to go down kicking and screaming like a child.
I guess Mac Forehand is a better man than Doug Gottlieb. Shocker.
So maybe the United States isn't being actively punished for political reasons by way of harsher judging in subjective Olympic events. At least Mac Forehand doesn't seem to think so. Not to Dan Woolen's face at least. But personally, I won't be taking Mac's word for it until he's had a few beers hops on a stream with Adin Ross.
That's when we'll learn how he really feels about his silver medal.