Should Women's contest skating be scored differently?

[Sharky]

Just watched the new Nine Club and Chris stated how he was bummed at how low the women's scoring in olympics was. I've noticed the same thing within the last year of watching women's contest runs, however I think that they are being judged fairly. For example my girlfriend has asked me a few times why women's skateboarding as interesting for her to watch compared to the guys. I did notice that once it came to watching the younger girls shred she was more entertained and excited when they nailed their runs. How do you all feel about it? Should skateboarding be judged the same across the board or should we judge female skaters differently based on their sex? If a different judging system does come into place how would you explain to someone watching a skateboarding contest for the first time why a cab lipslide or kickflip noseblunt from yuto or nyjah is scored the same as a women's lipslide or front crook?

[S.]

Just watched the new Nine Club and Chris stated how he was bummed at how low the women's scoring in olympics was. I've noticed the same thing within the last year of watching women's contest runs, however I think that they are being judged fairly. For example my girlfriend has asked me a few times why women's skateboarding as interesting for her to watch compared to the guys. I did notice that once it came to watching the younger girls shred she was more entertained and excited when they nailed their runs. How do you all feel about it? Should skateboarding be judged the same across the board or should we judge female skaters differently based on their sex? If a different judging system does come into place how would you explain to someone watching a skateboarding contest for the first time why a cab lipslide or kickflip noseblunt from yuto or nyjah is scored the same as a women's lipslide or front crook?

I agree with you and not with your girlfriend. I think it is kind of cool they are judged the same. I could even see one of the young girls getting single tricks that are scored on a similar level than some of the men‘s tricks. I would be cool to see a girl score an eight.

People who don‘t skate have a hard time understanding how the tricks are scored anyway. From the perspective of someone who has never skated: why does a 360 flip lipslide on a handrail get less points than a switch hurricane?
Scoring skateboarding will always be a bit arbitrary and difficult unless you establish clear standards like they did in gymnastics or figure skating. God, I hope that never happens.

[ok boomer]

[Theme For A Jackal]

If they're already going to separate them based on the distinction of gender then why should they be scored differently to? They're already separating them based on different expectations, so the best runs from women should be getting 8's, 9's and 10's the way the best runs from men would.

[MOE SYZLAK]

Whatever… just you know … pay them the same.

[coldbrew]

they're judged the same now for consistency purposes in years to come. skateboarding is still an incredibly young sport and even younger for women. in years to come there will be a point where women are absolutely skating on the same level as the men and when that happens the scores will need to be judged the same.

[busted-knee]

Whatever… just you know … pay them the same.

This.

[Dorje Drolo]

Everyone should just get participation awards.

[Pennybabie]

they're judged the same now for consistency purposes in years to come. skateboarding is still an incredibly young sport and even younger for women. in years to come there will be a point where women are absolutely skating on the same level as the men and when that happens the scores will need to be judged the same.

This is important to remember things are changing fast right before our eyes it's exciting to see! 

[rawbertson.]

Nah I like it because that way you can see a woman will actually beat a man some day hopefully if they are being judged on the same scale

i actually do think they should assign values to things, it really wouldnt be that difficult its probably not a far cry from what they do for the tony hawk games. so we know already how much a trick is worth, but then judge is there solely to award / deduct for style. it will just get stupid once people start tossing in double flips for extra points - you just need to be very careful about how you balance things.

main issues with current scoring system;
-runs are undervalued
-flip tricks are undervalued
-270s are over valued
-nollie / fakie is slightly over valued

[Hyliannightmare]

This. Equal rights across the board

[Hevonen]

I think the scoring is good. If they were scored 8-9 for those crooked grinds or lipslides, then there would be no reason to go for something next level like flipping into a grind. Women's contests are much further from their ceiling than men's.

[Ghost Lurker]

Kf front board down the rail or kf bs 50-50 down the hubba perfectly executed, or gap out front crook the big rail, scored way lower for the women than if one of the guys had’ve done those tricks during men’s comp.

Pinpointing these specific examples as exhibit a,b,c I feel like is a good place to start adjusting/modifying for next year. Judging contests is easier said than done in general.

And for sure, let’s get Alex White and another non-dude to help commentate the woman’s runs. Glad to see this all being discussed on Slap here.

[CorneliusCardew]

If you remember SLS history there were tricks that got a 9 point something years ago that if done today would barely even reach a 9.0. it evolves over time. I don't understand why this doesn't also apply to judging women's skating. If a particular skater does something and at that time that's the best people have done in that division of skating it should get the highest score. After that's been done people will surpass it and then that trick will get a lower score later.

[georgethecat]

The "score" they assign to tricks/runs is such an arbitrary thing to start with. If skating was in the Olympics 20+ years ago, they'd be scoring a straightforward Heath lipside as a perfect 10. This is, I assume, the same for all other "judged" sports. As the universe of what's possible expands, the score assigned to certain "tricks", or whatever they're called in other sports (Jumps? Maneuvers? Routines?), changes as well.

Further, what's the point of separating events by male and female if they're all to be measured by the same stick? The scoring system is flat-out offensive, as if women are to be reminded "if men were involved, you'd be in 15th place and not first". That is, why should the benchmark for scoring incorporate the abilities of people.(i.e. men) who are not a part of this specific competition and never will be? If we're going to separate men and women in competition to acknowledge that a) men and women have different bodies and, on average, for better or worse, are capable of different physical feats; and b) that women haven't had, until fairly recently, the same access to, or encouragement to participate in, competitive sport, then why not have the scoring mechanism reflect that as well? I just checked the 2016 Olympics results for men and women for the gymnastic floor routine, and the scores are nearly identical. I can't imagine they were doing exactly the same shit. So it seems like other sports have, appropriately, figured this out.

I didn't watch any Olympic skating, and on the whole I think it's all very theatrical and generally meaningless. Local skate scenes are infinitely more important. With that, I may have misinterpreted this post, but it sounds like men win with a "95" and women win with a "65", which is offensive and dumb.

[Xen]

Same tricks avaialbe to everyone on the same course, so everyone should be judged within the same scoring system. That's why we have a 'mens' and 'womens' division.

As for pay...well, pay in skateboarding has always been based on [who you know] amd skill level; one can hope non-males are paid the same as their skill level counterparts (doubtful).

Personally the top tier talent get judged way to high, it hasn't scaled in a couple of years..big deal another 270 flip in...it's the norm now how unexciting.

[Kombuch-A-Holic]

[SatanicPanic]

I think it’s overall fine except they need to score things besides handrails higher AND ABDs need to be penalized. These women’s contests sometimes end up being a game of SKATE which is embarrassing

[Swithflip]

Paying woman the same for skating shiter is not american the way of life.

[rawbertson.]

I think it’s overall fine except they need to score things besides handrails higher AND ABDs need to be penalized. These women’s contests sometimes end up being a game of SKATE which is embarrassing

I was thinking ABDs should be penalized but after thinking about it idk if they should be unless it is like an entire round seperated kind of thing, or its been ABD by you in your run already (which i think they do currnetly penalize or at least that is meant to be the idea). you are supposed to be rewarded by getting to drop in last, so if someone does the trick you wanted to do as well why should you be penalized? I realize you shold probably have more tricks than that but still i think the premise remains- what if someone happens to do the trick you were really feeling as well by pure coincidence? I dont think that should be penalized. esepcailly when the obstacles are so massive dangerous and scary. the gnarlier the obstacle, the more likely an abd is gonna happen too.

i think it would have been better if it wasnt all about handrails ffs... or at least have seperate events so we could have got to see more of what skateboarding is about

[SatanicPanic]

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I think it’s overall fine except they need to score things besides handrails higher AND ABDs need to be penalized. These women’s contests sometimes end up being a game of SKATE which is embarrassing

[close]

I was thinking ABDs should be penalized but after thinking about it idk if they should be unless it is like an entire round seperated kind of thing, or its been ABD by you in your run already (which i think they do currnetly penalize or at least that is meant to be the idea). you are supposed to be rewarded by getting to drop in last, so if someone does the trick you wanted to do as well why should you be penalized? I realize you shold probably have more tricks than that but still i think the premise remains- what if someone happens to do the trick you were really feeling as well by pure coincidence? I dont think that should be penalized. esepcailly when the obstacles are so massive dangerous and scary. the gnarlier the obstacle, the more likely an abd is gonna happen too.

i think it would have been better if it wasnt all about handrails ffs... or at least have seperate events so we could have got to see more of what skateboarding is about

I think it would be one thing if, for instance you had some lunatic learn Yuto’s go-to tricks just to mess with him. But we’re talking about the women’s comps where you’ll see multiple people doing the same easy tricks to stack points. That’s really boring.

[Mean salto]

I think the "low" scoring makes sense because they have to leave room incase somebody does something unexpectedly better. Eg a kickflip 5050 was scored about 4.7 but if they gave it a 8.7 what would they do of the Chinese competitor landed their kickflip 5-0?

Also I'd like to say Funa got robbed. She did a front crook on the 12 rail and got a 5 but front crook on the gap Rail only a 4.2. (both landed pretty much perfect)generally people were doingthe same tricks on both rails and getting scored higher for the gap Rail.

Her gap front crooked barely got scored higher than Leals kickflip board the small rail landed with both hands dragging

[Loki700]

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I think it’s overall fine except they need to score things besides handrails higher AND ABDs need to be penalized. These women’s contests sometimes end up being a game of SKATE which is embarrassing

[close]

I was thinking ABDs should be penalized but after thinking about it idk if they should be unless it is like an entire round seperated kind of thing, or its been ABD by you in your run already (which i think they do currnetly penalize or at least that is meant to be the idea). you are supposed to be rewarded by getting to drop in last, so if someone does the trick you wanted to do as well why should you be penalized? I realize you shold probably have more tricks than that but still i think the premise remains- what if someone happens to do the trick you were really feeling as well by pure coincidence? I dont think that should be penalized. esepcailly when the obstacles are so massive dangerous and scary. the gnarlier the obstacle, the more likely an abd is gonna happen too.

i think it would have been better if it wasnt all about handrails ffs... or at least have seperate events so we could have got to see more of what skateboarding is about

[close]

I think it would be one thing if, for instance you had some lunatic learn Yuto’s go-to tricks just to mess with him. But we’re talking about the women’s comps where you’ll see multiple people doing the same easy tricks to stack points. That’s really boring.

While boring to watch, the point of the Olympics is to measure skill first and foremost.  If every single person did the same trick, they'd still get different scores for how well they did the trick, which is kind of the point.  In long jumps, they're all doing the same thing and it's just a matter of how well they do that thing, and this shouldn't be any different if they all choose to do the same thing.  I do think ABDs for individuals, meaning you already did the same or similar in a previous run/trick.

As far as the scoring goes, if they're going to be separated then the scoring system should be separated.  If they're planning on merging men's and women's into one, then keeping the same scoring system would make sense to gauge how close it is to being ok to merge them, but I doubt that's going to be the case since the Olympics has always separated sports based on gender.  This also brings up the issue that women may want to compete with men, but that's an issue to raise to the actual organization.

Others have mentioned that the scoring system for specific tricks is whack, which I agree with, but I also think the format of 2 runs and 5 tricks, picking the best 3 of the 7, is a flawed system.  You can botch the two runs and win just on tricks, which is what happened in Yuto's case.  I think what would make more sense is to just deduct points if someone falls during their run, and have 1 of the runs have to count along with 2 tricks, or have 5 runs and 5 tricks.

[TheFandangler]

Kf front board down the rail or kf bs 50-50 down the hubba perfectly executed, or gap out front crook the big rail, scored way lower for the women than if one of the guys had’ve done those tricks during men’s comp.

Thats not really true though. Jagger did a gap out switch be nosegrind on the big rail and it was basically a “banker” as they would say. Felipe did a sw kf back nosegrind in his run, and granted it scored well, but it was scored about right compared to the women’s flip tricks to grind/slide.

Overall the scoring for the women’s seemed to be consistent with what the men’s scores were. How many points would nyjah get for a front feeble down the big rail? Probably the same or less than what the women were scoring on that trick.

The scoring for the women has to be consistent with the men’s so that when the day does come that there is overlap, the competitors know what is going to score.

[rawbertson.]

You can botch the two runs and win just on tricks, which is what happened in Yuto's case.  I think what would make more sense is to just deduct points if someone falls during their run, and have 1 of the runs have to count along with 2 tricks, or have 5 runs and 5 tricks.

This happens fairly regularly if you watch street league, dew tour, x games etc. yeah they definintely need ot make you take one of those run scores if this keeps happening...

its actually top 4 scores count, not 3

I think penalizing falling so hard during the runs is silly because it encourages safety dance runs with 1 hammer at the end. id much rather see 3 bangers and 3 slams than a safety dance for 40 seconds with 1 risky trick at the end which is typically what we see. the way they used to do street league was so mcuh better how they had different sections that they had to get scores on. you would have a line section but it was just like 3 tricks on 3 different obstacles not like a 45 sec thing iirc.

[TheLurper]

How about we just avoid the Olympics as a whole and then go back to enjoying interesting and creative video parts where "best" and scores don't matter?

I don't think we need to give a version of skateboarding that says, "Jagger Eatin is worthy of acclaim" any attention.



Or as others have said we need to just do track and field skateboard edition. Longest Ollie, highest Ollie, the 100 meter sprint, hurdle races, and furthest throw (shot put / AVE style).

[Billy Bitchcakes]

i actually do think they should assign values to things, it really wouldnt be that difficult its probably not a far cry from what they do for the tony hawk games. so we know already how much a trick is worth, but then judge is there solely to award / deduct for style. it will just get stupid once people start tossing in double flips for extra points - you just need to be very careful about how you balance things.

That would be horrible because everyone would train a handful of the same tricks. It already happens a bit where they know which tricks will do "better" but to actually have it mapped out so you can work out the predetermined score of any trick would make it much worse

[SatanicPanic]

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I think it’s overall fine except they need to score things besides handrails higher AND ABDs need to be penalized. These women’s contests sometimes end up being a game of SKATE which is embarrassing

[close]

I was thinking ABDs should be penalized but after thinking about it idk if they should be unless it is like an entire round seperated kind of thing, or its been ABD by you in your run already (which i think they do currnetly penalize or at least that is meant to be the idea). you are supposed to be rewarded by getting to drop in last, so if someone does the trick you wanted to do as well why should you be penalized? I realize you shold probably have more tricks than that but still i think the premise remains- what if someone happens to do the trick you were really feeling as well by pure coincidence? I dont think that should be penalized. esepcailly when the obstacles are so massive dangerous and scary. the gnarlier the obstacle, the more likely an abd is gonna happen too.

i think it would have been better if it wasnt all about handrails ffs... or at least have seperate events so we could have got to see more of what skateboarding is about

[close]

I think it would be one thing if, for instance you had some lunatic learn Yuto’s go-to tricks just to mess with him. But we’re talking about the women’s comps where you’ll see multiple people doing the same easy tricks to stack points. That’s really boring.

[close]

While boring to watch, the point of the Olympics is to measure skill first and foremost.  If every single person did the same trick, they'd still get different scores for how well they did the trick, which is kind of the point.  In long jumps, they're all doing the same thing and it's just a matter of how well they do that thing, and this shouldn't be any different if they all choose to do the same thing.  I do think ABDs for individuals, meaning you already did the same or similar in a previous run/trick.

As far as the scoring goes, if they're going to be separated then the scoring system should be separated.  If they're planning on merging men's and women's into one, then keeping the same scoring system would make sense to gauge how close it is to being ok to merge them, but I doubt that's going to be the case since the Olympics has always separated sports based on gender.  This also brings up the issue that women may want to compete with men, but that's an issue to raise to the actual organization.

Others have mentioned that the scoring system for specific tricks is whack, which I agree with, but I also think the format of 2 runs and 5 tricks, picking the best 3 of the 7, is a flawed system.  You can botch the two runs and win just on tricks, which is what happened in Yuto's case.  I think what would make more sense is to just deduct points if someone falls during their run, and have 1 of the runs have to count along with 2 tricks, or have 5 runs and 5 tricks.

“That’s how the Olympics does it” isn’t a good reason to keep doing it. The Olympics themselves are a mess of human rights violations and wasted money for the sake of some really dumb goals. The point of skateboard contests is to produce skateboarding that people want to see. Olympics should learn from skateboarding, not the other way around.

[Loki700]

“That’s how the Olympics does it” isn’t a good reason to keep doing it. The Olympics themselves are a mess of human rights violations and wasted money for the sake of some really dumb goals. The point of skateboard contests is to produce skateboarding that people want to see. Olympics should learn from skateboarding, not the other way around.

I wasn't saying it should stay that way because the Olympics does it that way.  I was saying it should stay that way because it makes sense from a competition standpoint.  Competitions by definition are to see who is better, not who is more creative/original.  If I was in a competition and I had planned on doing X because I thought it was super cool or whatever, and someone else just happened to do it before me, I'd be pissed that just because I happened to go after them that I got a lower score.

The only way it really makes sense to be across people is based on different runs, where if someone does a kf feeble in trick 1, and someone does it in trick 2, then maybe that second person scores lower because they waited to do it.

[SatanicPanic]

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“That’s how the Olympics does it” isn’t a good reason to keep doing it. The Olympics themselves are a mess of human rights violations and wasted money for the sake of some really dumb goals. The point of skateboard contests is to produce skateboarding that people want to see. Olympics should learn from skateboarding, not the other way around.

[close]

I wasn't saying it should stay that way because the Olympics does it that way.  I was saying it should stay that way because it makes sense from a competition standpoint.  Competitions by definition are to see who is better, not who is more creative/original.  If I was in a competition and I had planned on doing X because I thought it was super cool or whatever, and someone else just happened to do it before me, I'd be pissed that just because I happened to go after them that I got a lower score.

The only way it really makes sense to be across people is based on different runs, where if someone does a kf feeble in trick 1, and someone does it in trick 2, then maybe that second person scores lower because they waited to do it.

Creativity is part of being better. And lots of competitions include that angle.