The snow conditions in the Face were very good and reasonably predictable this year. Crashes were really an exception until the last category, men's skiing. This may have been partly due to the fact that many participants were banking on a safe run to the finish at the second stop. Scoring points with a solid finish at the second stop at the latest, even if it's not a podium finish, is an understandable tactic. What's more, it's easy to see that the strong competition in the men's ski event means that there's not much to be gained from safe runs.
The face, the south-east-facing slope "The Ozone", unfortunately doesn't offer too many opportunities to stand out from the competition. A vivid example of this is the field of female skiers: A smaller feature at the beginning, fluid turns, a bigger feature at the end. This actually describes all of the women's runs. Who should and wants to rate and rank these consistently really strong runs? Sure, a 360° at the beginning to collect points helps to stand out. Arianna Tricomi definitely put her tour experience to good use here. But for the viewer, it's not entirely clear what distinguishes first place from the rest of the placings right up to almost the last place, apart from perhaps the nicer look of fresh snow on turns and landings.
In the men's event, it becomes clear in a different way how difficult it must be for the riders to stand out from the others on this face. In addition, it is still not clear whether the judges want to reward freestyle action over the lookers left side this time, or whether a fluid, clean but obvious line through the middle of the face is the key to success and why backslaps are now severely penalized with a point deduction at one tour stop, but rewarded again at this one.
For an exciting look at the Webcast Replays, it might also make sense to include or design the interviews with the riders in such a way that it is not clear who has won/finished second after half of the starting field (Lorraine Huber congratulates Arianna on second place), and not to give any references to lines that have paid off from riders who have not even started yet (Reine Barkered refers to Turdell's rewarding line choice). As a production team, you might notice something like that after a 48-hour delay in broadcasting anyway. To the results in the individual categories:
