1. Line: Is the line original, easy, steep, has big jumps, well thought out or with much criss-crossing around?

2. Fluidity: Is the rider going fast compared to where he is in the face? Is the rider following his line without hesitations? Does he slow down too much or takes unnecessary stops before jumps? Is he lost and searching for his way?

3 Control: Is the rider in control at all times? Is he in control in the air? Did he control his landings? Did he manage to link turns in steep narrow places or did he slide down?

4. Jumps: How big was the jump? How did the rider enter the jump? What happened in the air? How good did he stick his landing?

5. Crashes: Crashes have to be looked at in an overall impression as well.

Here are various examples and how they could be judged:

No Fall Zone:
Judges have to pay special attention to where falls happen. If a rider makes a mistake in a place where he is putting his life at risk because of extreme exposure, he must be strongly penalized. Riders have to understand that they are not supposed to take unnecessary risks in fatally exposed places.

Change of snow:
Riders might crash because they hit unexpected snow condition changes. Judges will have to answer these questions to decide how they will penalize these crashes: “Did it happen in a no fall zone and should the rider have therefore been more careful?” Could he recover without compromising the fluidity of his run? Was it close to the finish line at a place where the rider was only pointing down to the finish?

Stop landings:
Sometimes riders will decide to land in a way that they can stop themselves right away because there’s no room in the fall line of the landing. Is this a crash? Judges have to ask themselves: “Did it look intentional? Was there any other way through without stop landing?” to decide whether they penalize it and how much.

Jump landings:
This will always be the trickiest part of judging. How do we judge landings in a fair way without compromising progression of the sport and at the same time not giving bonuses to riders taking risks but not cleanly sticking it?

It is important that riders get the feeling that risk pays only if it is successful when they see their scores. But all crashes shouldn’t have the same point consequences.

In order to judge landings in a fair way, here are a few tips to help judges decide on how much they will penalize a landing crash:

- Did the rider lose control in the air or did he just not stick his landing, even though he looked perfectly in position to stick it?
- Did the run lose its fluidity? Could the rider recover without losing his speed, or did the rider come to a complete stop?
- Could the rider recover right away or did he need 50m to get his act
together?
- Did the rider tumble head over heels before recovering, how many times?
- Did someone stick that same jump before and he just didn’t?
- Was this landing as good as it could have been compared to the snow conditions and jump height?
- Was this crash in a no fall zone?
Obviously, the same backslap or but check will not be penalized the same on a 3m cliff versus a 15m cliff, or landing a 720° spin versus a basic straight jump. Scaling crash penalties is an overall judging that lies inside the overall impression of the run.