Olympics
At the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, freestyle snowboarding emerged as one of the Games’ most talked-about events, drawing attention not only to the sport itself but also to the results. To the viewer, some results seemed obvious, while others left them scratching their heads. In the wake of the Games, many are now questioning the way snowboarding is judged, what the scoring criteria are, and how judging will look in the future.
The conversation about scoring mainly stems from the women’s slopestyle final, where Japan’s Mari Fukada took gold, followed closely by New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synott, who took silver.
Fukada’s run featured a switch 1260 (three and a half rotations), followed by two 720s (two rotations). This run would propel her into first place with a score of 87.83, giving her Olympic gold. Sadowski-Synott’s run included a switch backside 900 (three and a half rotations) and two 1080s (three rotations), landing her in second place with a score of 87.48.
This is where the controversy began. At face value, Sadowski-Synott’s run featured two larger spins, while Fukada’s run featured one. This led many to question why Fukada run outscored Sadowski-Synott’s. People wanted the judges to answer, and they did.
In an interview conducted by Whitelines Magazine, judges Gaz Vogen and Adam Begg explained the scores that the riders were given and what judges are looking for in competition. In the interview, Vogen emphasized Fukada’s execution, while Begg explained what the judges wanted to see.
“The key point with Mari’s run was it was absolutely flawless execution,” Vogen said in the interview.
Begg explained that judges wanted to see riders spinning in all directions. In snowboarding, riders can spin in four different directions: frontside, backside, switch frontside, and switch backside. Fukada had included each direction in her run, earning her the highest score of the contest.
The judges’ verdict was recently put to the test by the X Games’ Owl A.I., an artificial intelligence used to assist in freestyle scoring. The result of the A.I. flipped podium placement, putting Sadowski-Synott in first place and Fukada in second. The program explained that the judges did not take progression into account enough, as 1080s are considered a progressive trick.
The X Games, led by CEO Jeremy Bloom, recently introduced A.I. to assist with judging events in 2025. Despite using A.I., the final say on scores was up to humans.
These Olympics truly spawned the question of what snowboard judging will look like in the future. Could A.I. eventually replace human judges? It’s certainly possible.
But for now, snowboarding is (mostly) judged by humans, and the results of women’s slopestyle snowboarding at the Olympics are here to stay.
