Hahahahahahahaha... Fail. It's Jon Olsson, dude. As ridiculously talented and creative as those guys are... it's Jon Olsson. It's not even categorically possible to say that anyone is better than him at skiing right now, and if you were going to try to make an argument (why you'd do such a thing I have no idea), the number of people on whose behalf such an argument could be advanced could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Re: Jon's comment, he is certainly entitled to his opinion, as is everyone. He was right about the judging, from what I could see (not being in Stockholm), at least as far as the qualis go... I thought the judging in the finals was pretty unobjectionable aside from the few inexplicably low scores and PK's 12 probably not deserving a 99 out of 100 (I actually thought if anything would get that kind of love, Jon's third trick would), but I have no qualms whatsoever with PK winning the comp given what he put down out there. The whole "king of style" thing is a misnomer to a certain extent, but these are some of the best skiers in the world and they can all do zero spins and smooth sw7s with their eyes closed, so if you try to judge solely on that, it's going to end up being almost arbitrary in its subjectivity... you might as well not call it "King of Style" then either; it'd be more like "What TJ & Co. Enjoyed Today". They did send some numbers the way of people who killed slower spins; Simon had a 7 that scored in the mid 200s.
And as I say, Jon's fully entitled to his opinion on the judging, on Gus' quali jump, hell, on Gus' style generally or anyone else's. However, kids on this site hating / criticizing / voicing their opinions and etc. is completely different from a guy who rides for red bull, oakley and multiple other major companies, gets paid a few hundred grand a year, has his own camera crew following him around and happens to be one of the most respected representatives of this segment of the sport, singling out a 16 year old as an example of a bad judging decision. When you represent a company, you really have to watch what you say, because it reflects badly not so much on you as a person as on the image you're paid to put out there (and in Jon's case, given his status, on the sport), and because you're in a position where your opinion is more than just opinion: to a lot of kids out there, it's the fucking gospel. So I'd say the apology is well warranted. In my view, saying "the judging was whack" is fair comment, saying, or implying, "Gus's jump sucked and he didn't deserve the spot he got" is stepping over a line into territory best left to the peanut gallery here in SG.
But come on, we all say things that come across wrong every day, and multiple major sponsors or no, Jon's a human being and it's going to happen to him too on occasion (particularly when his life is on film for everyone's edification) so the "Jon Olsson is a dick" comments have been pretty damned absurd. Yeah, because you're all perfect, right?
