The Summer of X
I know I said I would only write two X Games posts per year, but there were a couple of things that just fascinated me about Summer X 16 in L.A. So here it goes, my last post on extreme sports until January.
Year after year, X games athletes continue to raise the bar at the Olympics for action sports. Bigger tricks and combinations give rise to new events that force athletes to get more air, create the need for longer half pipes and verts, and have fewer repeat gold medalists. While the 16th annual X Games showcased some young talent in skateboarding and Moto X, there were also some more subtle innovations that may have flown under the radar to first time viewers.
With the Staples Center and Los Angeles Coliseum being heavily used for the X Games each of the past seven years, the Skateboarding and BMX Vert events were held on stage at the nearby Nokia Theater, marking the first time an event was held in a theater. It appeared on television that sight lines were more limited and fewer people were able to attend, but seeing the half pipe under stage lights rather than in the center of an arena showed just how innovative action sports have become.
In his pursuit of a second straight gold medal in Moto X Step Up, an event in which dirt bike riders try to clear a bar at various elevations, Ronnie Renner looked to some unorthodox training methods. In a session with Pac-10 pole vaulting champion Chelsea Johnson, Renner did everything from walking on his hands to his own version of the worm before hitting the pole vault pit. Johnson, who won a silver medal herself in the 2009 World Athletic Championships, also hit the dirt hills to get a glimpse of Renner flying up to 20 feet in the air on his bike. The training paid off, as Renner walked away with a silver medal in the event falling only to veteran rider Matt Buyten.
I’d be remiss in my post if I didn’t mention the stories of Moto X rider Ashley Fiolek and Cam Sinclair. Fiolek has two obstacles facing her as a Moto X rider. Besides being a woman in a patriarchal sport she was born deaf. Riding since the tender age of 7, she said feeling the vibrations of the bike helped her concentrate better. In 12 years of riding, she broke her collar bone and wrist twice before competing in her first X Games this year. Her mechanic Cody Wolf said her handicap doesn’t inhibit her riding.
“You don’t see the motorcycle riding her you see her riding the motorcycle,” he said in an ESPN feature. “She makes the motorcycle do what she wants it to do.”
Taking the gold medal in Women’s Super X this year, Fiolek established herself as a hard nosed competitor among all Moto X riders.
Moto X riders are no stranger to injury, but the comeback story of Australian Cam Sinclair has to be one of the most inspiring. One year after a fatal crash at the Red Bull X Fighters competition in Madrid in which he attempted a double backflip, it’s amazing that this man can walk nonetheless ride a bike. The fall left him in a coma for a few days, scaring his family and his new fiancee.
A week before the X Games and a year short of his predicted full recovery, Sinclair competed in the best trick event in the same Spanish competition and placed 10th. Thousands of fans at the Staples Center collectively held their breath as Sinclair hovered at over 50 feet in the air in Moto X Best Trick, but when the daredevil pulled off one of the most dangerous tricks in the sport it was sheer pandemonium.
