The five-ring circus just proved its uptight colours—all blue, black, red, yellow, and green of them—when Japanese pipe slayer and Burton rider Kazuhiro Kokubo had both officials in his home country and media the world over in a frenzy this week over the steez of his ensemble—shirt untucked and tie hanging loose, gasp!—when he showed up at Tokyo's Narita Airport before departing to Vancouver. Rebel, rebel, your face is a mess!

According to The Daily Telegraph in the UK, when he made fun of the incident, saying the Games were "nothing special" and "just another snowboarding event," a veritable media buffet ensued like it was Britney in the tabloids circa her shaved-head/crazytown period. He was then forced to apologize before the media but managed to do an even better job at pissing off officials by sarcastically dragging out his words. At first, the Ski Association of Japan (Japanese FIS, so tells you they're likely a bunch of anal, cable sweater-wearing types) wanted to have him shipped home right back over the Pacific but both Kazu and team manager Fumikazu Hagiwara (for not having a shorter leash on him) were thrown into the proverbial dog house and banned from the opening ceremony. That'll team 'em to act like such hooligans, right?

Ironically, in its muscle-flexing attempt at reigning Kazu in, all that the Ski Association of Japan, and the subsequent media uproar, illustrated, was just how out of touch they really are. More importantly, it heightened the wall between snowboarding and FIS more than it ever has been, and cemented in the minds of shreds across the world that the organization is indeed not looking out for snowboarding's best interests. This example is a microcosm of just that. Just because they love wearing tight turtlenecks and penny loafers, and discussing the fine points of schussing on-piste, doesn't mean they need to strong-arm one of Japan's best hopes for a medal to bring back to the land of the rising sun.

The upside is that Kazu's final attempt at an apology was sufficient enough to "allow" him to ride in tomorrow's pipe contest at Cypress. It's here that these same officials and the media who bought into the whole ordeal will have their real apology when the baggy-pant sportin', dreadlock-growin' rider lays a beatdown on the pipe with his samurai warrior skills.

Kazu — way to bring us back to the days where going against the grain of the establishment was the norm, and pissing off a few anal kooks along the way was just what we did! —Dean Seguin

Kaz looking prim and proper at the 2010 X Games. Bakke/ESPN photo