Norwegian snowboard site, Tacky, has started a petition against SMS voting in the X Games after Travis Rice won the Big Air event over Torstein Horgmo. Tacky claims that the win was unjustified and  that “The Big Air contest this Thursday did, in our opinion, not respect the rider’s efforts. When the judging was done by an SMS jury, the evaluation of the rider’s athletic efforts was given to an athletically incompetent and biased jury, mainly consisting of Americans.” The basis of their argument is that Horgmo won last year semi-finals, when he and Rice did the same tricks as they did in this year’s final. If you can read Norwegian, check out the site and petition here – I’ve put an English version of the petition letter below the cut.

Dear organizers of the 13th X Games.

Last Thursday (Jan 22), we the snowboarding community, witnessed some of the most amazing riding ever in a Big Air contest.

Rice, Horgmo, Bang and Wiig were both pushing their own limits, as well as snowboarding itself. And this is exactly what we want to see in an X Games final; the world’s best riders delivering the world’s best riding. And it is also exactly the X Games’ strong tradition which makes us recognize your games as possibly the world’s most interesting contests.

It is the riders and their efforts that make the competition so valuable. When the world’s best riders are pushing their envelope at The X Games, The X Games should respect and value these efforts accordingly.

The Big Air contest this Thursday did, in our opinion, not respect the rider’s efforts. When the judging was done by an SMS jury, the evaluation of the rider’s athletic efforts was given to an athletically incompetent and biased jury, mainly consisting of Americans.

Evidence holds that Horgmo won last year semi-finals, when he and Rice did the same tricks as they did in this year’s final. Also, Rice Reverted his trick on landing this year, whereas Horgmo stomped his, something trained judges would have recognized.

Evidently, if the X Games semi-final was judged correctly in 2008, Horgmo should have won this year’s final. This means Horgmo lost the title due to incompetent judging of his athletic efforts. Thereby we hold that the X Games did not respect the efforts of the Big Air-participants in a way that these efforts deserved.

The riding in the Big Air-finals were amazing, as was Travis Rice’s winning jump. But we, the snowboarding community (and probably also the invited riders), want the X Games Big Air to be a contest that rewards athletic efforts, not popularity or nationality.

And if you wish the X Games Big Air to be recognized as the world’s top big-air contest in the future, you should let the real, competent judges do the judging.

After all, snowboarding is about the riding itself, not who has the most fans.

We hope you take this point of view in account when you decide the judging system of next year’s X Games Big Air contest.

Sincerly, the undersigned.