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People unfamiliar with competitive wakeboarding might not understand how each contestant is scored. Here’s an overview for fans attending today’s Supra Boats Pro Wakeboard Tour season finale at Center Lake in Warsaw.
Three judges will give athletes a score of 1 to 10, and each judge’s score is worth a third of the overall score. The scores are averaged together to come up with an overall score out of 100.
Each judge analyzes the rider’s run based on criteria remembered by the acronym DRIVE: difficulty, risk in the run, intensity, variety and execution. Judges reward or penalize riders according to the performance of their runs.
The difficulty part of the score is based on factors that make a trick hard to execute, such as number of rotations, combining tricks by adding spins or grabs, the direction of the trick (backward is worth more points), the rider’s stance, and whether or not the board was grabbed.
Risk is judged on linking difficult tricks, trick difficulty in relation to course conditions, and whether a rider “puts it all on the line” to outscore opponents.
Intensity score is based on how high a rider gets in each trick. If a trick is incredibly high, a judge would note on the score sheet with a pair of plus signs. Likewise for the lack of height with a minus sign.
Judges look carefully for a rider to perform a variety of tricks to determine the most versatile rider. Wakeboarding has categories of tricks such as straight airs/glides, spins, inverts/flips. A good wakeboard pass should have tricks from each of these categories and be well-rounded. This shows a rider is skilled at all types of maneuvers.
Judges will ask themselves if the tricks were all based on the same trick, if the grabs were different and if the rider spins in both directions.
In evaluating execution, judges are looking for the completion of a trick and whether the rider was in control, showing confidence and poise. Judges look for a clean landing without “butt checks,” dragging hands, switching directions to avoid a fall and more.
Judges are looking for how clean or how perfect each individual trick was performed in the passes. Judges look at approach, body position, rotation of the trick, axis of the body, head position, handle position, clean grabs and speed of the trick. A rider completing a routine without falling also demonstrates perfection.
Riders will be expected to have one trick flow easily into another, for instance, when a rider lands a trick switch and then cuts into the wake to do the next trick in the same switch position. A rider who does not flow well would do things like constantly hopping from switch to regular or vice versa in their transition between tricks, starting the pass late or finishing a pass early. Dead water is not showing flow or composition.
Lastly, judges are looking for originality: Did the rider make the trick their own, or does it look like everyone else’s trick?
Creativity of course management and time is crucial in achieving a smooth, flowing run. Riders who take the time to plan their run and the path they are going to take in and around the obstacles/rails will be rewarded in this area. Riders who can link creative tricks and maneuvers between obstacles will also be rewarded.
Judges will be looking for riders who use up the full time, and length of the course. Wasted water will reflect negatively toward the rider’s score. Judges will only score tricks successfully landed. Falls are a missed trick and course time is lost. Riders are allowed one fall. The run ends with a second fall.
So while the riders have plenty of things to think about, so do the judges, who will ultimately determine not only the winners from this weekend, but the overall season championship in Warsaw today.
