x games
By TMX Archives on 21st Sep 05
In the past 11 years the ESPN X Games have sure come on a hell of a long way. In the past 11 years the ESPN X Games have sure come on a hell of a long way. From ropy beginnings with sports including bungee jumping, sky surfing and super-modified snow-shovel racing - I kid ye not - the four-day event is now a bona fide competition that brings together the best 'extreme' sports athletes from the inline skate, skateboard, BMX, wakeboard and moto worlds.Since MotoX freestyle made its inaugural appearance in 1999 three more moto-based disciplines - Best Trick, Super Moto and Step Up - have been introduced and for good reason too...those crazy kids and their high-flying mosickles are the X Games #1 watched event. That's a lot of eyes glued to TV screens and live internet feeds around the globe right there.The 2005 edition - X Games XI - returns to California's capital of kook (Los Angeles) and the Home Depot centre is once again put to good use for the four-day festivities with the Best Trick comp opening the proceedings for the moto events.The rumour mill is pumping out some good 'uns in the run-up to the event and there are many questions to be answered - the biggest two being will Pastrana attempt a double back-flip and can Chuck Carothers land another Carolla or was last year's body varial a one-off freak occurrence?As it turns out the answer to both questions is a no! Chuck pans himself on both attempts at his Carolla and Pastrana takes silver with a candy-bar saran-wrap to no-hander-lander back-flip after wrecking himself in round one when his specially made bike that's supposed to do barspins breaks on take off.The big winner on the night is Jeremy 'Twitch' Stenberg who takes gold with the longest back-flip in X Games history - 90 foot - with a no-footed turndown to one-hander-lander thrown in for good measure. Travis' trick may take more syllables to explain but Twitch's takes more cojones to execute and that's what really counts!Step Up is next on the roster and just five riders step up (groan - Sutty) for the challenge - last year's gold medallist Jeremy McGrath, ex-winners Tommy Clowers and Matt Buyten and also Brian Deegan and Ronnie Renner who's filling in for the injured Mike Metzger.All five clear the opening height of 28 feet but as the bar's lifted to 31.5' only Tomcat and Buy-10 make it up and over the bar - Deegan destroys it at both attempts while Renner and MC get the height but not the distance needed to get up and over.Clowers also clears 32' while Buyten gets the height but not the distance. If that's not bad enough the shoulder he wrecked in last year's Step Up battle with McGrath pops out again on landing. Matt pops the duff joint back in, has another crack at the bar but takes it to the ground again gifting Tommy his fourth X Games Step Up gold medal.Saturday is Freestyle finals day and after prelims whittle down the 10 riders to five everything's to play for on one of the gnarliest freestyle courses ever built. The five finalists - Adam Jones, Nate Adams, Kenny Bartram, Twitch and Travis - have two runs to settle it with the best scoring run counting for medal positions. And the battle for medals is tougher than ever - with all five riders pulling a variety of back-flip combos it's gonna take the eagle-eyed judges a lot of deliberating to figure out who's hot and who's not.Nate Adams jams his foot in the prelims and is a little off form for his final run riding with a broken big-toe - at least he looks real neat in his General Lee inspired kit. Even though Nate pulls super technical tricks like the 360 on both runs the judges reckon he's only third best on the night."Every time my scores came in - here and at Best Trick - I was left thinking what more do I need to do," reckons Nate.X Games XI - resultsBest Trick1 Jeremy Stenberg(Honda)2 Travis Pastrana(Suzuki)3 Nate Adams(Yamaha)4 Kenny Bartram(KTM)5 Ronnie Faisst(Honda)//sub//Step Up1 Tommy Clowers(Yamaha)2 Matt Buyten(Honda)3= Jeremy McGrath(Honda)Brian Deegan(Honda)Ronnie Renner(KTM)Freestyle1 Travis Pastrana(Suzuki)2 Kenny Bartram(KTM)3 Nate Adams(Yamaha)4 Jeremy Stenberg(Honda)5 Adam Jones(Honda)Super Moto1 Doug Henry(Yamaha)2 Jeremy McGrath(Honda)3 Chad Reed(Yamaha)4 Eric Bostrom(KTM)5 Kurt Nicoll(KTM)For full story don't miss the October issue of dbr - on sale now!