#16 Olympic Mens Big Air Contest Review

So we're into the first of our Olympic Specials, and the first contest we're looking back at is the Mens Big Air from Milano Cortina 2026. An absolutely insane final to kick off the Games, which certainly wasn't boring.

From the wonder-story of Valentino Guseli's last-minute entry, to a full review of the podium runs and details on why our medal-winners earned those medals. Get the full behind-the-scenes breakdown of how the Olympic Mens Big Air panned out during those early stages of the Games, and the gigantic scaffold-hybrid jump that was an iconic part of the Livigno Landscape.

Recorded in Livigno, in a rare calm moment in the midst of the storm.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to episode 16 of the On the Knuckle Podcast. I'm Gaz Vesman Vogan, and here alongside me, as always, Mr. Adam Beg Begsy. How's it going?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Excellent today. It's a change from good. We are sitting here in Lavinia at the Olympics. So how can we not be good? Exactly. Or excellent.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Excellent. I think I like the excellent. I think our Olympic excitometer is uh is filled up to the top. We're about a week in. We've got big air competitions done and dusted. We're starting on with a pipe. Um I've only received one death threat so far, and that was from my wife. So that feels like quite a successful start to the games.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Yeah, I'm with you. Excitometer's through the roof. We've had some riding. We're getting to almost a halfway point with events, and we're yeah, we're settled into the bubble and we're actually kind of soaking it in and enjoying it this time compared to Beijing, which felt a lot more stressful, I think.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Yeah, and I think especially the obviously then COVID just felt like everything was a bit restricted and closed down. Here we're getting to walk around. We've bought our own lift tickets so we can go snowboarding a little bit as well. Um and I think just soaking in the experience quite nicely.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yeah, it's a nice village, everything's walking distance, there's just always something going on, and it just feels it feels like more like that Olympic community that you we heard about before we did the Olympics, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yeah, exactly. So uh yeah, very hyped to be here. Um and yeah, this is of course gonna be our first Olympic episode of On the Knuckle, which is quite sick. And we figured because the Olympics breaks down all the all the snowboarding by discipline and by gender, which is cool. So the women have a different final to the men's on different days, etc., we figured we'd do the same with the podcast episodes as well. So today we're gonna talk about Olympic men's big air. Snowboarding, of course. Well the scaffolding, etc. It's pretty spectacular, and it was really cool that everything was at night.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, it's a big scaffolding. It's it's sort of from anywhere in town or on both sides of the resort, you can see the in run for that thing. And then at night it's even better. Like you just see this beautiful white ribbon sort of up above the village. So the jump looks good. It sort of got refined over the previous like the last three days of the training. It ended up being slightly on the smaller side, I guess, compared to some of our big airs, but that had the takeoff and the landing kind of matched, and there was no speed issues, so that's the main thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

And don't believe what you read on the TV graphics, it is not 25 meters. Um might be 25 yards on the on the measurement. It looks about I'd say in 19 meters sort of thing. Yeah. I want to say slightly bigger than we had from the likes of Could and nicer run-in for those scaffolding big airs. Uh, and it is a scaffold hybrid.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

So it's yeah, it certainly didn't get the speed bumps that the city one seemed to often get. Like the snow conditions were good. They had a bit of fresh snow the day before, it was cold. So definitely that in run and the way it looked wasn't sort of bumpy and crazy. And yeah, their conditions were good. They were certainly chucking, and I think it was one of the best qualifications events we'd ever had.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Oh, a hundred percent. It was one of those a lot of people seemed to land. We didn't really have the usual like 30% fall away. It didn't feel out of it anyway. It felt like the pressure was on. Um, and it was quite cool. It was just one heat, so we got to do full panel.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah, fully. One heat taking 12. The amount of landed jumps was absolutely nuts. Yeah. They were all good scores in the 80s and 90s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

And 12 out of uh 30 men's dropping, 40% cut rate, which is kind of nice and high compared to when we look at World Cups and we're looking at maybe 12 or 16 out of 60, suddenly you get a lot more of those better tricks into finals.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, and I think our bubble scores around the 60s, which is usually where you'd be looking at a podium. So it was it was high. It was 163. So our highest bubble, and potentially looking back through the season, that would be one of your lower podium podium scores.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Yeah, and Leah, 160, obviously out of 200, so the average jumps were an 81.5 to be in that bubble.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, so two excellent jumps.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah, which is uh a lot to expect people on for many riders, first Olympics, Olympic pressure, all that jazz. Um, the other kind of interesting thought is we've got a reverse schedule to what we had in the Beijing Olympics. There we did Big Air last. And it was something chatting to Todd Richards that he asked what we thought of uh big air being first when it's kind of typically the huck, tuck, and hope kind of uh discipline and people not wanting to ruin themselves out for um for slopestyle, but it didn't really seem to hold anyone back.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

No, the jump was safe, so I think they were chucking, but there was the yeah, we didn't didn't see many injuries, which was great. So I think it was a good one to start on. Uh it's it left us on a good vibe. We well and truly got into good sync, judging the panel's working well. We definitely feel like we're in a good place going into pipe next.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

And uh yeah, it's very uh we're obviously under high pressure with all the TV programs and all that jazz, but I feel like the crew has gel together nicely. We've been working together for the entire season, it feels like, and we've actually got quite a calm booth, and we're not letting tensions rise or the pressure get to us too much.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah, we're I'm really happy with how it's working, and hopefully the results reflect that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

And the head judge isn't too bad either. Um, but I guess so before we get into men's qualification, one thing I kind of wanted to bring up a little bit was uh the cameras and the angles, because this is something that's caught us out a little bit in uh previous Olympics. So this time we're working with a separate TV crew to what you as a viewer would have seen. So we've got a very consistent angle that's on the edge of the knuckle, so we get a really perfect view of the amplitude and trajectory. It's consistent every single run. The rider never goes out of frame. We see good shots of the landing, and we do have uh access to a takeoff camera as well. Whereas I know there's been reports from various friends in the media of uh the OBS Olympic broadcast service, which supplies the feed to CBS, NBC, BBC, etc. etc. Uh there I think it's got better as we've got through the games, but uh specifically for qualifications, there was um some chat about them not having the same angles as us.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

It's definitely the world feed, it goes to everywhere, and they've got all the bells and whistles, they've got swinging booms, drones, all different sorts of angles, 360 cameras, close shots, but they don't necessarily link them all that well. So there's bits of tricks getting missed, and there's things that the riders and coaches were seeing on their feed that we don't get. Ours is a little bit more rudimentary. There's no bells or whistles, but we get a perfect trajectory and we get to see what we need. And like I said, like you said, if we need a replay, we we call it out and we can see those other angles.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, and uh yeah, our camera does look very basic compared to the the OBS system, it's just an Italian man and a tripod. Uh, but he did a cracking job, we didn't miss a single trick. So 100% success rate, which better than a condom.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yeah. I guess the only thing with the cameras from our point of view is an OBS faced this problem as well. For our buttercam, it was probably a little bit elevated, and that was one we actually shared with them, but it was it was very flat to the jump as opposed to being down in the belly, so we could see a little bit more of what was going on. And the other thing being a night comp, it was we're no matter where you put a camera, you're looking into lights and black sky. So the black on black or the light reflection made some grabs, knee grabs and stuff just harder to to give a clear handle on.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

That was the only kind of imperfection was if the rider wasn't didn't have a light behind him, he had black sky behind him. So uh yeah, but uh that was one we had to pause a few times to check. All right, so into men's qualifications. Was it night, as we've mentioned, so that's cool under the lights, um, with a decent crowd, as it were, not as good as for the daytime events, just because they seem to bring a bit more people in, but awesome atmosphere.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah. And standouts for this one, I think we had the same set standout. So first one was Romain Allemand.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, so he had uh one of the best scoring tricks of the night, had the back uh back double 14, pull back to 12 with the tail, a super progressive trick with the pullback, really nicely executed, which is what we've like outlined to the whole community that for a progressive trick to get rewarded, it's got to have that level of execution. Um it was sick. The only downside was his second trick was an attempted nose butter front 14 tail, but it just wasn't buttered. So it was just the kind of pre-spun 14 tail. And that was a trick that we looked back at extensively.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, totally. It's one we were hoping we'd see because we saw at X Games he went nose butter 18, so we were ready for something big, and then yeah, to kind of miss a butter on the 14 was yeah, we're really hoping to put a score to that trick because we haven't seen butters with that degree of rotation before.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Yeah. And he did do a nose butter 18 in training with a nice, really nice nose butter nolly takeoff. Uh, but he did fall on that trick first, so I think just dialed down the um the rotation just to kind of give himself a fair score, but just missed missed the butter. And unfortunately, as anyone who eats toast says, no butter is uh no-go. I think we've been listening to Tim and Ed on the BBC too much.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

I guess the big thing with Romain is for him there were kind of two tricks with really good variety. So we've got the the nose butter in there as opposed to just an 18 or a 19, and we've seen that he has does have those bigger rotations, and then that backside pull, which ended up nearly getting a 90. So you're almost in the nines club, in amongst the 18s and 19s, and one of the better scoring tricks of the night. So that was good to see.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah, and just bear in mind that the way we'd looked at our range was kind of we kept a little bit of the top for 21s because uh when Ian Matteoli's around in Hiroto Oguara, you're never it's never not a possibility.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And Tiger. And Tiger Putting his hand up to say somebody might 21 or sneaky inside information for com always helpful.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Um so if you're considering like the top of our 90s would have been 21s, the scoring an 89 on this the the back 14 pull back to 12 is sitting up there well in our 19s kind of portion. Yeah. 1980s portion. Um so yeah, so that was uh yeah, pretty impressive. And that and that kind of theme ran through a few bits of like having one really good trick uh that was progressive and a bit more different than the spin-toin side, but then not having that backup trick as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah. I guess that yeah, that's that's definitely a standout of this event. Like the everyone was landing jumps, it was big tricks, it was unique tricks, there was a lot of cool sort of rodeos and butters and pullbacks and things that they definitely got we got to put a score on finally. Unfortunately, for those riders, they just didn't get the backup trick. So we didn't see, whilst in this one there was a lot there, we didn't see a lot of them go through the finals. So that probably takes us through to another standout is Montreusland.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Oh, which uh again, yeah, as we say, had a very cool first trick, has the hardway switchback side double rodeo 12. Indy, super nice execution, really tricky to kind of get that snap and get the rotation in, holds the grab all the way through. Uh the downside a little bit is he loses the amplitude just because of that switch hardway nolly takeoff. Yeah, his second trick was only the back 16, and uncharacteristically for Mons was a very flat trajectory. Mons is often quite a good popper.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, he's a big strong guy, and he gets pop, but for some reason this jump just he wasn't just getting the snap out of it, he wasn't getting pop, and he was he was battling quite a lot in in the training to get it around.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

But we were stood on the knuckle. And you could hear as he set for those backside rotations, you could hear the audible gasp about the the groan before he said it again. It comes out for any bottle Norwegian listeners, yeah. You could you could absolutely hear the groan as he tried to set the rotation on that backside. So yeah, something just wasn't fully working there.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, so unfortunately no backup trick there, but like we said, that that switchback hard way rodi 12 is it's a pearler. It was yeah, super technical takeoff and just yeah, high risk, high reward on that one. He he almost tackled the nines club on that too. So even with a slightly lower trajectory, he still ended up at a like an 86 or an 87. So it's like way up there for that, which is good to see. And there's only one other person that's even stepped to that trick.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yeah. And I guess Jake Hantor always worth the mention. And this one for me was a bit of a a shock standout because going into the games before we'd seen the jump and training, you'd probably have had Jake Hunter up there as one of your pretty heavy hopefuls of uh Yeah, he wins he's won more than one training this season.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Like every day you get their first day of trainings and his reps are there, he's just snapping tricks, he's he's got a good takeoff, he's got those higher rotation tricks, and the stomp rate is incredible. And then just comes to competition and yeah, it just seems to not be able to put it down as consistently.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Yeah, so he went back 19 with great grab and amplitude, and then uh second trick was uh only I'm using invert commas, a switch back 16, which um when you consider the level of the quallies just wasn't sadly gonna cut it.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

And that takes us to second one out, who is Eli Bouchard from Canada.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah, so uh very again one of those riders on that progressive train and arguably leading the way with some of the weirder mind melting, makes us work harder to figure out what direction it is.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Oh, we're constantly updating our trick ID in the computer for the tricks that he takes us through.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Because he's got all these boosh tricks with the weird frontside shifty, backside rotation, nolly takeoff. However, you want to break that one down. And then in X Games, uh just before the Olympics, he brought out the triple version of that. So it's like great, we're now having to go in and I've ended up as the bit of the boosh consultant, um, because I have to text Eli and figure out what he wants the weird trick to actually be called. And I guess to break that down, you have the boosh, which is the double inversion of it with the the nolly takeoff and the front side shifty. Forward to forward, it kind of works as a 1080. Then you have the muckboosh, which is the same, an extra rotation comes out switch at a 1260. And then you have the boosh bomb, which is the the one that fully kind of confused everyone in October, which is the forward to forward with the extra 360 at the end coming out at a 1440. And then there's the triple versions of those. So you have the triple boosh, which you did at X, the triple mukboosh, and then the triple boosh bomb. And I did text Eli, and this is me being mathematically nerdy and stupid, but if a boosh bomb is a double inversion, then the the triple inversion of that must be a boosh bomb and a half. Um, otherwise they'd have to do six. But anyway, tangent. So yeah, Eli Bouchard, second one out, uh, did the McBoosh, the double inversion one, forward to switch. Uh, had a really good grab and good amplitude on his second attempt at it. Just had an edge on the landing, which kind of kept the score a little bit lower.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, and this is one that has divided us for months now, since back in SAS FAE when he first dropped it as to what direction it was. And this this resulted in this slightly changing in the wording of that rule to now the direction of the trick's determined by the majority of the rotation or the majority of the horizontal rotation. So in that one, we've we've deemed a backside. So the writer got to pick in that case, and he picked backside, and so that for that purpose is backside, so his other trick obviously has to be opposite to that.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, had to be front side or switch backside, and he opted for the front triple 16. Um, and kind of similar to what we were saying with uh Jake about having his switch back 16. Front triple 16 was good, it's one of the most technical and difficult 16s, but it wasn't able to break into that field when we were seeing 18s and 19s.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

So yeah, he was really good, I think, for that one. I think if anything for him, it was the execution on on his first trip that that left a few points on the table. The front 16 was as good as you can do, that one from memory.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Totally. Um, and then going into our next one at just above him, first one out, and uh, what is probably the best I've actually seen him ride in an Olympic competition, because uh he didn't do that well in the the prior games. Uh, but Marcus Cleveland from Noy.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, and his first jump was an absolute ripper. He sort of went, it's almost it's almost like a pretzel type nose butter, but he basically went backside nose butter up off the takeoff into a frontside double Todeo 1080 or Nolly frontside double ten.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

So yeah, uh insane. And yeah, it's it's only a 10, again, using inverted comments, but the whole mechanics of that takeoff is so just adds so much technicality into the front double ten.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

High risk and super unique. No one, no one's we don't see that trick ever. It would have been, yeah, if I think if that was cleanly executed, that would have been a ninth club for sure. So we would have actually had a ten in that high-end scoring.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah, which would have been very cool to see.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Uh sadly, did kind of squiggle and open up a little bit early and slapped his hands on the landing. So uh it was a tiny bit of landon execution, which is just what kept it down uh in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, and we did get a few, I did get a few messages about that one, and from the sounds of it, it just people didn't get to see how technical that takeoff was. They they didn't get the nice takeoff angle that we'd asked for for that reason.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Yeah, and I think this is where having our own feed and our knowledge of stuff, just to blow our own trumpet slightly, um, we're aware of all the riders' various tricks, so we're aware of which ones definitely need a double check on the takeoff if it's not noticeable. And when you see Marcus just do the front double ten in the air, you know there's another element of that trick that needs to be checked. Whereas someone from whoever's doing the production at OBS might have just seen the front double ten and taken their very typical in-air shots, landing shots, and kind of finishing shots for the replay system.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, and that's the other reason we watch training so we can see them playing around with that stuff and no, I guess pre-empt that those tricks are coming.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah. Um and then his second trick, or second and third tricks to be fair, because this was we were a bit split panel as to which was better because they were up and down in different criteria.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yeah, you went backside butter 16 with a a really cool indie poke on it, like really gave it some love on that. And like you said, it was a bit split on which were better.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Yeah, and run two had a really like a much better grab through the air, but then the hand touch on the landing. Run three was a shorter grab in the air. Not like I called it average grab rather than short, short, uh, but then uh had the cleaner landing. So it was very split which way we kind of went. Um, but it would have been that those would have been the tricks I'd have loved to have seen in finals, um, from a very like bird's eye perspective, just because they're super different. Uh they're very anti-spin to win, which I think makes for a nice balance in the final. And Marcus did ride the bubble for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yeah, it would have been great to see them in the finals, I think. Like just yeah, to have a 10 and a 16 go in amongst those. Just yeah, different, good for snowboarding. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

And he uh he's the reason why I got the death threat because when I turned my phone on after the event on the time code, it was when uh Marcus got knocked out, and obviously my Parisian wife sent me a text saying this is a death threat. Um that's just because I've been away a long time or because of uh Norwegian dropping out of finals. But he did get bumped out of finals by the last one in, which was a very cool, very Olympic story.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah, and this one was amazing. I think it was well, some people call him viral Val in amongst the closest circles because it's yeah, it was the story of the beginning of Olympics. Like it was one, we were one of the first events on, and after this qualities had finished, every time you opened your phone, it just seemed like every different media outlet around the world was talking about how Val did the unthinkable on a few hours of training and managed to qualify. So unfortunately, Mark McMorris went out in training with an injury and was unable to start. And so Val had missed the three days of training, he hadn't hit the jump, and at 4 p.m., when Mark announced that he was unable to, he hadn't got the medical clearance he needed to compete. Val got the tap on the shoulder to go in. I think he did an hour of media and then got ready for an hour and rocked up to the jump at six o'clock and had to start hitting it. So did the comp on four or five runs or something, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

It's insane to do that little training and still have to put down two tricks because of the format.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Totally. And he did, he came in and stomped all three jumps, which was absolutely incredible. He came in clutch at the end with the switchback side 19 tail grab, which is a trick that he hasn't landed before in competition. So yeah, stomped it and got the score and just managed to squeak into the finals.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, and fair play, very cool story, yeah. The and the switchback 16 double tail that he did was super well executed, and I believe we've talked about it on the pod at one of the big airs at the start of the season, because he was doing that trick, but it was very much switchback 16 tail, and then his other hand would like just tap the tail, whereas this was pure switch rocket air holding the table both hands, um, which just yeah, boosts up the difficulty of it being uh switchback 16. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

He was the last one into finals. I guess one other thing to note on this one is Japan qualified their whole team into the finals, New Zealand qualified their whole team into the finals, which is an incredible result for them. Italy qu qualified their whole team into the finals, albeit their team of one. And I guess if you're going down that route, the Aussies probably got their team of one into the finals. Yeah. So there was there's some full teams in there, there was some good nation representation, and it set us up for good night finals.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah, it did. And I think Japan qualified and the whole team would. Is probably the expectation given how the the whole team's been riding. Awesome for the Kiwis, the New Zealand team, because I think they got some very stylish riders, so nice to get all three of them through. And I believe they were they were dropping pretty close to each other. But yeah, should we get into finals?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah. So like we said before, night finals, super good conditions. We knew we were going to be in for a show. They were chucking 21s in training. The vibe was super good between riders. It's sort of that whole Olympic thing that we've spoken about, and everyone was just feeling the energy out there, I think. It was a it was a good night.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah, it was not boring.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Um, so obviously, uh one of the big controversies of the night, which is lovely because it wasn't a judging point of view, um, but Pod Richards commentating for NBC had a bit of a hot mic moment. Um, thought the the broadcast had ended, thought he was muted, wasn't muted, and just made a comment about oh, this is that was so boring afterwards, which um it was anything but from my point of view.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah, there was quite a from our point of view. There was a lot of storylines, the jumps were incredible, standard of riding was incredible, and I think it was one of those ones where most of the riders went all or nothing. No one came to get fourth. Once people started going, you're like, they were they weren't doing safety runs. With that field of 12, any one of them could have got on the podium and they rode like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

And I think it's one of those you're in the Olympics, you may as well be 12th instead of fourth. Like you're not gonna medal either way. It doesn't, there's no points related to it outside of it. So yeah, just chuck it, which does end up with a little bit more messy kind of landing sometimes, a little bit, which gets trickier to judge. Um, but yeah, I uh I did enjoy that Todd stole the controversy for that one. Uh, because yeah, I feel like snowboarding big air is never boring. But yeah, so into any notable standouts.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah, so this one, first for me, would be Frank Jobin from Canada, who in training went for backside radio 16, which has never been done before.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

No, that would have been trick of the night.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Um, so was it.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, and he he had a couple of swings at that in training, I think. He did some 14s and some 16s, and unfortunately went down on his last run of training and dislocated his shoulder. Still showed up to the top of the course. I think Lion gave him a pat on the back just before his run, which probably didn't help things, but good pack dicks from the keywords. I think that was purely accidental, but he came in and laced as six, which back roadie 12 knows on jump two, then on jump three, went for an MBD in competition with a back side rodeo 14 indie, a trick that we've only ever seen one other person do, which is his countryman Max Perot. Yeah. Back in Sasha a few years back.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Then he got uh really bloody close to landing it perfectly, and that even though it was only the 14, and we've just said the 16 would have been trick of the night, the 14 would still have come out of it very well with the Clean London.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Totally. Again, another MBD in comp when that is landed in comp.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah, yeah, which can't wait to see. Yeah, technically not getting all big airs this season, so it will be the the 18 by the time we get around to to Beijing next year. Um, so yeah, so I think Frank was pretty sick. Uh he was kind of the only one of our non-spin to winners, should we say, in the final. So I think came out of it the the snowboarders champion, uh, especially with the switchback double rodeo nose, which is one of the best I've seen him do all season.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Um cool. All right, my first standout, I was gonna drop in, Lion Farrell. Uh is he on your list as well? He's on my list as well. Uh went back 18 rocket, and it was super nicely done. So back 18, double nose grab, held the grab so well through the rotation, put it down really nicely and with great amplitude.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

I was saying the amplitude was there, the grab was held forever. It was as good as you could do a back 18 rocket, and the score reflected that is up in the the low eights, I think it was an 83, in amongst the sort of nineteens, and one of the tricks of the night. So that's yeah, that was a good jump.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

And again, just from a I guess a behind-the-scenes perspective, we had heard insights that people were tempted to chuck 23s, so our scale that was kind of maxed out at 21s in qualification, then dropped further. So still getting into the 83s is well into that 19s.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, it was a cracking score for that trick, and I'm glad he got it down. I just unfortunately didn't get his backup trick.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Yeah, so he was going for the front 18 tail, got pretty close to landing it, couldn't stick it and over-rotated, uh, and did the revert, which was uh not ideal. That's not something that goes down well. I I did speak to him afterwards, and he just said that kind of what we were saying, like he couldn't leave anything on the table, and that trick has kind of haunted him a lot in contest. Um, but kind of what else are you gonna do? So he just had to chuck it and hope for the best, and yeah, so so close because that would have been very cool to see where that would have landed.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah. Um, one of my other standouts is Valentino again. Valentino Giuselli from Australia. He's um he's went switch back 19 again, like he's been doing them forever, even though it's probably only the second day he's been trying them. And then last jump went to have it a swing at a back 19. So first time on Snow and had a crack at that again, all or nothing, leaving nothing on the table, but someone who only got the tap on the shoulder the day before to then go and go 19-19 in the big show.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Like yeah, that would have been an amazing story from 31st and first out all the way up to wherever. Uh and the bit that kind of surprises me, and I guess this showcases how well the jump was built and was riding it, is that Val's here for half pipe this week. And I I kind of made the comment to someone during quallies when before he dropped for the switchback 19. I was like, well, he's already got the two sixteens down. He's gonna probably save himself for pipe, so this might just be a vit lap. And um apparently, even when you get to finals, there's still no holding Valentino back.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

I think the other one was Heroto.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Just he odd standout from someone who didn't land a single run.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

No, but he was our top qualifier, and he'd gone down in two runs, so we didn't know whether we were gonna see a method or a front three or a 23. And it was the latter. He he was out, but I think he just really wanted to put a 23 down, so he had a swing at it.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

And oh, and I don't think it was overly close. I think he only just about got to 21. But it was it was cool to see a 23. I've never actually put 23 on my steno. Um, so it was quite a nice experience. Uh, but yeah, it did it was went better at X games, should we say?

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah, went down but walked away, and he's already a tough kid.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Yeah, tough kid. Always seems happy as well, yeah. Very cheerful, uh, even when his the results haven't gone his way. Um cool. So my uh oh sh we get into sixth place. Seems on a shorter episode we'll go from uh three podiums down.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, and it's the Olympics, I think. They they all deserve a mention. So that one was Dane Menzies from New Zealand.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Yeah, really good front triple eighteen tail, decent amplitude, good grab, bit of a standout 18. Um, I had down the tiniest hint of an edge change in the landing, but the the tiniest hint. And then back 18 Mellon, which is super solid grab, weirdly average amplitude, kind of similar thing to Mons, like Dane's usually quite a good popper.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yeah, he is usually a real standout for the pop and had been all through training. That particular one's a little bit flatter.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Yeah, uh, but a very a very Dane Menzies-esque stomp that we've kind of got used to seeing of bored perfectly downhill, both the under him.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, yeah, like his stomps just bolts. Like there's they're super straight to the car park. The front 18 for me was he's they he's got one of the best front 18s in the business. The tail grab's good, the axis, it's a proper triple. And personally, I wasn't scoring, but I could have had that a few points higher. I think for me, that was definitely one of the the better jumps of the night. I mean, this comes down to one of those judging things. Sometimes we sort of agree on things, sometimes we didn't don't agree. I may well have been dropped, I may well have been kept. Um, I think we were spread everything from a 79 to an 84 on that one, and he ended up coming out at an 81. So I would have loved to see him sort of more on that 83, 84 sort of sort of mark. Which was the score I gave.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

I'm a bat on the back to myself. Uh yeah, I had that trick beat in uh quite a couple of the 19s um because it is a good standout 18 for sure. Um, but into fifth place, someone who did do a 19.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Ian Mattioli from Italy, our sole Italian in the finals, hometown favourite. The crowd support for him was incredible down there on the night.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Yeah, unsurprisingly, uh I think he was Italy's big chance of uh a medal in the snowboard actually on the he was sitting in a medal chance for a while too.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

There was a close call for second and third at one point, and he went switch back 19, very similar to Su Ming's, um, and he got did a cab nose butter 18 on the second one.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Yeah. And that was one of those that again, we called it the cab nose butter because that was the intention, but when we looked at it again, like a bad slice of toast, it just didn't have any butter in the takeoff. Um, the board kind of only got round to 90 degrees, and at the very end on the final frame that we looked at, there was a slight bit of nose pressure, but it kind of came out more semi-nolly 18.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah, there's the tiniest little bit of lift there, and like you say, it was more sort of almost a true cab 18, so he kind of went off the nose. Um definitely when you go across the panel, it was deemed you missed the butter on that one. So it was it was put down as a cab 18 nose butter and scored accordingly. Unlike some butters where they don't get the butter that are then scored as a poor not executed 18. This one still got the love as an 18 because of because of the slide off the nose. But then talking to his coaches the next day, he they agreed that he did miss the butter on that one.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah, and they were they were pretty happy with the score. Um some coaches disagreed, thought it should have been even lower than what we had it down as. One of the coaches I spoke to had it down as basically a well-disguised brig spin.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah, which I did and again I disagree with, and it's something we probably need to talk to the community about. Like, whilst we all didn't agree as a panel about the butter and it was harder to see, there's definitely something unique in that. Like it wasn't a smeared takeoff, there was something different, and it was a different 18.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Um, cool. So that takes us into fourth place, just off the podium on his Olympic debut, only a Martin from the USA.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, and apparently came out afterwards he was riding with a broken arm. Um so we had both him and Frank in the finals all banged up and still chucking and doing well. So you never guessed that broken arm. No, you wouldn't. And Ollie had a back 18 Melon and a front 18.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

So yeah, and uh, I guess this is one of the things that we spotted on the internet afterwards because it's always fun to check Instagram and people's opinions. Um that was the kind of the common consensus that people thought he should have had a medal, and I think this is where the different camera views really come into play because from our angle, which is the true angle uh compared to the OBS looking down, you can see how much flatter the trajectory is compared to our podium athletes. Um the back 18 also was heavy on the heels when he kind of came in, so a little under rotated, um, and yeah, much flatter and put good grab on the front 18. Yeah. Um and you go back to trick difficulty when you look at our podium stuff at the uh yeah, 18 and 18 compared to 19 and 19.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Um Yeah, so for Olys, it was definitely that back 18. Like both of them, like you said, the trajectory was low, but the back 18 was low and a bit edgy and squatty, so it wasn't certainly in Danes type of landings, which for me I probably could have had those two flip-flopped. So it's just how it goes, especially when you're you're judging two jumps together with six people and dropping high and lows. Uh yeah. The way the mesh came out, he he came into fourth.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

And a lot of it just comes out in the wash.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yeah, and with two 18s, um, I guess that takes us into third place.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Yeah. Uh so a previous gold medalist from the last games uh added the final colour to his wonderful Olympic medal collection, but Su Yi Ming from China. Yeah, who had back-to-back 19s. Yep. Which is insane. Uh, yeah, back 19 no's, uh, good grab, and uh one thing we noticed from like uh all of Sue's runs throughout the whole contest was the amplitude in the pot was uh insane.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Amazing. Like we had our consistent camera which showed trajectory really nicely, but then when it goes to OBS and some of those ones when they're cropping tight, someone like Sue Ming it break their formula, so he was almost out of screen on certain replays that we got access to. So especially comparing to Oli Martin with the two flat 18s, that first back eight 19 nose of Sioux was down to the bottom and absolutely massive pops. So yeah, yeah, that that got the score, that one, and then his switchback 19.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Yep. So a super good grab had the mute all the way through. Again, really nice pop and trajectory. And I guess the screen grab that's been shared a bit on the internet is like a little double hand slap on London. And what you can't really tell from the TV feed, or we could tell from our feed was uh all the weight in the centre of mass was going through the legs and over the board. That was purely a gravity slap.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Yeah, it's impact hands. So he compressed into a ball, and yes, his two hands went down, and still looks yeah, pretty damning as far as hands down. So we did definitely didn't deny that it was two hands down, but there was no weight on the back of the board, it wasn't a hand drag, he wasn't skimming along. And for that one, it was because he went down to the bottom of it, and he got points deducted as such. So when we went back and had a look, Ian Mattioli did a very similar thing on his switchback 19. Two hands down, instabilities. It was one of the better switchback 19s of the night, and he got an 80.25, and Su Ming got an 80.25 on his swatchback 19. So both of them probably left a good 10 or 15 points on the table there from what could have been the jump of the night down to the 80s. Yeah, because I think before the hand touchs, that was probably a 90s 19. Yeah, um for sure in in my eyes. So yeah, they got deducted accordingly for an impact hand, not a hand drag, and that's where the points went. Um, an interesting point from Freddie, one of our judges, is that when he was talking to someone and they were sort of saying that Ming didn't win the Brahms medal with two hands down, he actually lost the gold medal with two hands down, which I thought was an interesting analogy. And it just again, with this one, there's two different jumps, and when they're added up, that's how it came out. Yeah. Um, which is just yeah, the way it is. Yeah, and interestingly enough, on that one, had you guys taken another five points off him for the or hand impact hand, had you docked 20 points for that, he still would have been in third place. There's a little bit of a drop away down to fourth. So I'm very happy with that podium. And like we say, it is two jumps combined. So even with a little executional flaw on the second one, it's still a clear podium for that one.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Yeah. Um, but right, in to second place silver medalist at the Olympic Games, Ryoma Kamata from Japan.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah, and here we go with our spin to win. Yeah, it was yeah, good. He had a back 19 Melon and a switch back 19 nice.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yeah, and both super clean grabs, not short grabs again. I again I class them as average grabs. There was like uh could have held them a tiny bit longer. Uh, but both really clean landings, very much stomped, uh, which is sick. Uh, with full respect to Ryome, he probably wasn't the Japanese favorite to get a medal when you had the likes of uh Kira, Taiga, and Hiroto there, but on the day, rode really well, uh, and even tried the back 21 on run three just for um kind of a Hail Mary and very Super Bowl themed tactics uh the night before the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Totally. So yeah, two good jumps, and like you say, he wasn't one of the two that most people said to me afterwards they weren't the two Japanese I picked to be on the podium.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

So yeah. Um, but yeah, sick just amplitude was the bit that kind of kept him away from first. Uh it was again a little flatter trajectory than we had from our gold medalist.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Kira Kamura from Japan with two perfect jumps.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Two uh back 19 Mel and Switch back 19 Mewt, both yeah, perfectly done, great amplitude, no knee grabs, all fully clear. And I think the obvious winner. I think everyone was pretty stoked on that.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Yeah, there were the two best jumps of the night. So that one that one was clear. So, like we said with the podium, it was two really good clean jumps on top, two good jumps, but not quite as good as the top two jumps for second, and a good and one with some instabilities for third.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

So uh Kira Kamura takes gold here in Milano, our first gold of the games, which is really cool, and Japan's first gold as well. Yeah, um, so congrats to I guess congrats to all the riders because it was a hell of a show, and but big congrats to the the podium athletes.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yeah, our first medals awarded, first Olympic event in the season, done and dusted. Yep. Andren Regley's first event as an Olympic judge. Yeah, popped his jerry. Yeah, that was a good one all around. We're stoked with how that worked out, and yeah, we're super pumped going into women's next.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah, we probably we would have ended up going to that podium ceremony. Uh we just got tired up a little bit for a few minutes afterwards just waiting around. Um, but yeah, they are very cool ceremonies for sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

So yeah, Su Yi Ming took a selfie. Even though they were explicitly told not to take phones upon the podium.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

No, they get given a phone.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Oh, is that?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

So that's so the guy gives them a phone and then they take a selfie with that. Oh, so I've got a photo of our women's podium, which we will cover in the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Oh, fair enough. I did not know that. That's quite cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yeah, so I think maybe Samsung being a sponsor, maybe it's a Samsung Flickphone, and so every podium they go into a selfie with it.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Hopefully they end up getting a copy of that because it's cool. Cool little gesture.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Yeah, very uniquely placed. And Samsung, if you are listening, we'll be more than happy to take selfies in the booth if you uh do provide us with a photo. So uh Yeah, stories, whatever. Yeah, you think we're we're we're good at content, we think.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

So uh flip phones are on the knuckle, please.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Yeah, okay. Right, so that is it for our men's big air episode. I'm still buzzing off that one and talking about that one just brings back how excited that was to see. And uh the next episode we'll cover is gonna be the women's big air. Um, looking forward to it. Yeah, so hopefully you're enjoying the Olympic coverage. Uh tune in, follow us on Instagram. We're a little bit limited to what content we can put out because of the various rules in the Olympics, but we'll uh we'll do our best. Uh so follow us at Onthenknuckle on Instagram. Um, of course, we've been here a week. We're starting to get a little bit tired, it's starting to be draining, so uh coffee's always helpful. So head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash on the knuckle if you want to support the pod. Because we are super duper grateful. Hello, your friends, anyone who's tuning into the Olympics and enjoying the show, then uh send the podcast their way so they can learn a little bit more about uh how the results came out. Um other than that, I think we're on a chow for now moment. Yeah. Sweet, we'll catch you in the next one. Yeah, yeah. I can see the hand gestures in the background. Um so ciao for now, and we'll see you in the next one. Ciao.