There is a long and on going discussion at TGR about the reasons that the level of the snowboarding is so far below the skiing. Are the best snowboarders doing something else or is a snowboard just the wrong tool for a venue that works well for the ski men? Maybe some of both.
I think the level of the women's skiing has risen as much as the men, but the men are now doing things that are so mind blowing it is hard to see anything else. I love watching the top women ski. They ski like I wish I skied. The men look like they are playing a video game doing tricks I can't imagine.
The more I ski with snowboarders in steep terrain, the more I certain become that a snowboard is an inefficient tool for getting around a mountain. They seem great for powder and in certain other situations, but skis are much more versatile, especially in steep, technical terrain. I think there's some of that in play for the snowboarders, and I think some of it is that there's the Natural Selection tour and a few other outlets competing for the top talent, and those two factors combine to make the Snowboard Men category less impressive to watch than the Ski Men.
The Ski Women category is also great to watch, even if that's a couple of steps below the Ski Men. My purely subjective ranking of the categories is:
Ski Men
(huge gap)
Ski Women
(pretty big gap)
Snowboard Men
(huge gap)
Snowboard Women
The Snowboard Women category is pretty much unwatchable for me. Maybe the times I've watched them have just been bad events, but it looks to me like they're just trying to get to the bottom without hurting themselves rather than trying to ride fast and throw tricks to win events.
