All Photos: Tom Zikas

With the conclusion of the contest season forthcoming, we wondered what it's like to be one of the minds behind the decisions that can potentially make or break a pro's snowboarding career. How does one become a snowboard judge? What in the world is it like to hold this position?

With questions like these looming in our head, we went to straight Guillaume 'Giom' Morisset for his take on his current position as a competitive snowboard judge.

Giom's a veteran to the scene and judges all of the major independent snowboard comps like the X Games, Dew Tours and Burton/TTR Opens.

We caught up with Giom between events to find out about his past as a pro and what it's like to be one of the top judges in the snowboard world.

Where are you from and how did you get into snowboarding?

Being a French Canadian 'Quebecerster,' I got into snowboarding a little later than when the craze was already happening in California. I probably first heard of snowboarding in 1992 and that's when I started. I was 12 years old or maybe 13.

When did you turn pro?

After about 6 years of trying to tweak some, learning different ways to spin and experiencing multiple bindings adjustments, I finally started flipping. That brought me into winning my first international event which was a halfpipe World Cup at a local resort in Quebec.

From there, I would say my pro career started. I had some minor sponsors and traveled a lot on the competition tour.

I never won that many contests, but I would always get at least two good wins a year. This included the US Open in halfpipe, the Vans Triple Crown in slopestyle, and the Toyota-Nippon Open Big Air in Japan.

Then, I met cool guys like David Benedek and Travis Parker and got a part in the last installment of the Robot Food movie- Afterlame. Fun, but definitely wish I had the opportunity now, as I would put much more energy into the project.

What were your favorite memories while pro?

I had many good memories and great experiences from my days as a pro, but hey- to be honest, it's even better now as a judge. I mean, I still get to travel to all those amazing places for snowboarding and I still have responsibilities, but I don't have to be focused on performing at top of the game and don't have to take all those crazy risks anymore!

Haha...it was fun, but now I'm way happier to ride easy because the tricks the pros pull nowadays are nasty, double upside down stuff on huge jumps, in conditions that aren't always best. There are some serious consequences if you're not focused on your game.

The tricks that all these guys do now are incredible.

How did you transition from being a pro into being a judge?

The way I got into judging is as simple as my ex-girlfriend having the idea, and so I did it.

I started at local events in Quebec and then quickly expanded to international events since I had good connections in the industry.

Now I pretty much judge all independent contests. I judge the TTR Burton Opens, Air and Style, Arctic Challenge, Dew Tours, X Games, both in Aspen and Europe and whatever else is going down.

Do you have preference between judging Halfpipe or Slopestyle?

These are different events with different style. They are all interesting and everyone tries to do the best with our sport and make it look good. Depending on weather conditions, sometimes we get the best event ever with new rad tricks, sometimes its just another contest.

What are the key elements you look for in Halfpipe and Slopestyle contests?

I always enjoy seeing someone showing original, raw snowboarding, whether it's in pipe, rail or slope. Expression session! Style is my favorite.

What do you think about Halfpipe as an Olympic Sport?

Now that our sport is in Olympics, I can actually watch the games on TV. I don't think that I would be truly interested in watching the Olympics without it. I guess that it's good for that reason, plus it gets all the riders excited about being recognized worldwide by random people that don't know anything about snowboarding.

Slopestyle is very close to becoming an Olympic sport as well- The decision should be made late in May. What are you thoughts about that?

As far as Slopestyle in the Olympics, yeah why not. It means I'll watch an hour more of TV and it might be actually exciting to watch.

I think that snowboarding still has much more expansion. I wish jumps would get more fun. I mean, when I started riding, it would be tabletops. Now, it's mostly step down cheese wedges.

I'm not a fan of those.

First, I don't know what speed I need because the landings is hidden behind the cheese wedge, secondly, it doesn't give a fun feeling of shooting up there and thirdly, there is bigger impact on the landings, which makes it more difficult to land tricks.

With these jumps, it is pretty impressive to see where kids have taken our sport. Freestyle aerial skiers do triples with spins and they are so focused and on point with those.

While us snowboarders do more random tricks- We still do triples with flips, but they are unique and have style. It's impressive!

Do you have plans to continue judges, riding or both?

As for me, I'm just gonna keep slashing pow or slushy snow, flip weird and tweak into smooth landings. And actually maybe double cork something into pow! That's what I like to do. That's what it's all about for me... and ya, I'll be judging too.

Giom recently got a taste of the other side of the contest scene once again and came out on top at Dustin Craven's Fun Pipe Contest at WSSF.

Check out his winning run from Monster's The Show 4: