The Miranda's put on a superb Jr. World Championships. The skiing was incredible. Unfortunately, the event was marred by poor judging, which is out of their control. These judges are picked based more on politics and not enough on merit. The host should have some more control over the choice of judges as it reflects back onto them as a host organizer. This selection process needs to change for the future. I think it deters people from hosting an event if they can't have some control over the judges that will run the event.
@klindy Here is my perspective on the what happened in Boys tricks. First, the decision to hold each skier for the previous skiers' score was a disaster, putting undue stress on each skier as they had to hold for sometimes 10 minutes and up to almost 20 min in one instance, without warning as to when they would have to go. Of course there was no provision in the rules for how long they had, once notified of the score, to be in the water; so it was immediate. Most stood on the dock with their ski on waiting. I 'm not sure why this was done, but I was told that some of the countries actually requested that they do this and the officials voted for this. I can't imagine how this helped any of the skiers. Until we have a more efficient way to come up with scoring this should never be done again. It was also not announced as provisional scores, which they are until they are reviewed.
This put pressure on the judges to rush to get scores out. Some of the judges were changed out after girls tricks, which went off smoothly, for a couple of new judges for the boys. Pato and Lindsey both skied well, but had issues. Pato fell slightly early at the end of his toe pass and Lindsey didn't get over the rope on a SLBB. From my perspective, I thought that their were several tricks of Linsey's that looked to be questionable and I thought that he would most likely lose credit on some of his tricks. In the end, he only received a NC on SLBB for not getting over the rope. Pato lost credit on a SL5, which I thought was fine from my view. Originally, Pato was announced the winner, which seemed correct from what I saw.
Upon inspection of the sheets, the French team noticed that the SLBB was called NC, but felt that he should have been credited a WBB. The judges made the mistake of calling SLBB NC and not determining wether on not it was a credit or no credit WBB. Just because you don't get over the rope on SLBB doesn't mean you automatically did a credit WBB. Initially, the first request by the French team was to change the NC SlBB to a WBB. This is a judgement call and should not have been allowed. If the judges felt he had done a wbb, it should have been written that way.
The judges changed the trick from slbb to wbb and then returned the sheets to the French team for review. Another error was then discovered that the judges shorthand had not been transcribed into the scorers tally and Lindsey was not credited a flip that he had actually done on the water. They then requested to have this corrected. By this time, it was around 9:30 and the chief judge requested for everyone to go home and they would finish up in the morning.
The Mexican team filed a complaint in the morning that the slbb should never have been allowed to be reviewed because it was a judgement call that was missed. Same as Pato not receiving credit on SL5. Pato wasn't allowed to have the judges review his tricks, but Lindsey was given that option. The Mexican team requested that since Lindsey was given the option to have his trick reviewed, Pato should have the same. This was granted. In most instances, if the originally judging was good, the trick would again come back as no credit. The SL5 was reviewed and the original call was overturned. This is pretty incredible and the trick would have had to have been very good to have the original call overturned, which means that the judging was pretty poor to have taken a trick that was good under further review.
The entire thing was a mess created by poor judges and poor decisions. Had they called the runs properly, the outcome would have been the same and Pato would have won based on the what he did on the water. The situation put the kids, family and teams in a very awkward situation, but I think they made the best of it. Had they run the trick event like normal without the scoring delays between skiers, they would have been able to finish earlier and resolve the issue on the same day.
@Jody_Seal As far as Brooke's slalom, the judge made a huge mistake. Unfortunately, the judge's initial response that "it happens" and not humility, remorse or apologetic made the the acceptance of the result much harder. I did hear that she did finally apologize. Unfortunately, mistakes are going to happen, but most often it's the attitude of the judge that makes the situations better or worse. It's much easier to forgive when you see the person isn't so cold about the result and their mistake. I was at Jack's when Jon had a tech issue for Will Asher running 41 and his response was unforgettable. It was obvious immediately that he was devastated and very sorry for Will. The response of this judge contrasted so much to Jon's response, that it reminded me immediately of Jon and Will. The boat judge calls in the color and line length to verify. Why she wasn't looking at the loop on the pylon while confirming with the tower is the problem. It is the finals of the World Championships with the top seed on the water for the "money" pass and everything should be triple checked.