X Games

[zcookie49]

Pastrana Still Unbeaten in Freestyle competition.
Travis Pastrana won his fourth X Games Freestyle Motocross gold medal Saturday night at the L.A. Coliseum with a score of 94.67, and remains unbeaten in every freestyle competition he's ever entered.

Brian Deegan landed the first 360 in competition, but his score of 93.00 was only good enough for the bronze. Travis Pastrana landed the second 360 after time expired on his run.

Nate Adams' run was packed with technical tricks including a perfect backflip heel-clicker, but lacked the 360. His score of 93.33 landed him in second.

Kenny Bartram (91.00) took fourth and Beau Bamburg (89.67) rode to fifth.

From EXPN.com website...

 

[Racer#213]

Thanks :(. It hasn't been on tv yet.

 

[jake949]

funny i looked at this thread because i knew it had the results, and it might never be on tv, we might get pushed out to watch ants mate or something like a spelling bee.

and you didn't have to read the whole thing did you???????

 

[CPT Jack]

Here's the firsthand report. Just got back from the event. Travis looked unbeatable in practice, but Nate Adams pulled the McNasty clean (and the #1) in the Prelims.

Deegan pulled a sketchy 1st backflip & a 2nd one clean in the Finals and after time ran out landed a 360. It wasn't totally clean but the place went wild. It was pretty unbelievable - a backflip w/ a 360! It shouldn't have counted but must have. The judges put him in 1st place.

Travis came out aggressive pulling a backflip off the entrance jump. No one else had done this and the exitement level shot thru the roof. Everyone was on their feet ... anticipateing what might come next. He pulled a no-footer backflip & a couple other great classic tricks & swung around to where Deegan pulled the first 360. Everyone was like... OMG he's gonna go for it. He pulls it & spills on the landing. Time runs out but he jumps up into his bike and circles around again. He launches, pulling hard & twisting the bars & lands it clean. Un-freaking-real! If the judges took Degan's 360 into consideration, they couldn't ignore TP's. He earned the gold tonight for sure.

Nate Adams put in a great run capturing 2nd (he deserved it as well) although trying to follow Pastrana's was mostly anti-climactic. Bamburg and Bartram were amazing as well.

 

[Racer#213]

I didn't read the whole thing, i just read the first para about pastrami, then stopped, because i wanna see it my self

 

[Treejumper]

Its on at 4pm EST today (8 mins). You should put "spoiler" in the subject line just like in the MX forum.

 

[jaypro55]

It's starting to get unbelievable here. Last year only Metzger had the backflip in competition since Pastrana was out with an injury. Now this year it's completely impossible to win without one. Is that a bad thing? Well not really I mean as far I know, nobody has been seriously hurt doing a backflip yet. The Nate Adams crash was by far the most brutal and now he is out pulling flips better than almost anyone. I watched the video of both Deegan's and Pastrana's 360s and they were just incredible. Everyone predicted this would be the next step in the evolution of the sport and it looks that way. Adams's backflip heel-clicker was text-book and already it's starting to look like there's going to be more and more variations to the backflip. It might not be long before we see a backflip kiss of death which would probably look more like a hang 10 lol...but it's going to be wild to see what happens next. I think the next most logical step up though is going to be a barrel roll. When these guys whip they whip so hard anyway I'm surprised it hasn't been pulled off yet.

One promising thing though are the new foam pits a lot of these guys are using. I've read that Metzger has one, Pastrana does and Carey Hart and maybe Deegan too. I think this is really a good idea so that these guys don't go really injuring themselves trying new things. And for Pastrana, well he looked amazing on the bike...I think he should really consider a full-time freestyle ride...it seems like his body could take that much easier. But wow what excitement in the sport.

 

[fender92883]

Originally posted by jaypro55
I watched the video of both Deegan's and Pastrana's 360s and they were just incredible.

Where? I saw Deegan's but I missed Pastrana's run...if I knew he was going to be on I would have watched longer. :(

 

[jboomer]

TP had a great run! He's a lot of fun to watch! Big crash on his first attempt (fell flat on his back off the back of the bike) but was back up chasing after his bike just as soon as he hit the ground. He almost caught it before it fell over. It's cool to see that kid ride without breaking a bone or having some other season ending injury!

 

[CaptainObvious]

TP can really work a crowd. The guy is smooth and exciting. I thought Nate Adams was "best in show" but Pastrana just worked the crowd and had them on their feet. People love Travis.

Thanks ABC for showing that!

 

[yz250roost]

Ok so here it comes....my opinion...everyone run! No really, I think that it's awesome what is going down at the X games, I could never ever do that stuff on my bike, I give them props for what they're doing. But, if you are going to do a trick you have to call it what it actually is. I went to the big air comp on Sunday night. Keep in mind that I didn't go to the FMX event on Saturday, so if something went down on Saturday then I will retract my comments. Anyway, to me the so called 360 is not a 360 at all, it is merely an off axis backflip, most other sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding, and bike would call that a flair. What needs to happen to make it a 360 is the bike has to be into more of a whip before he starts the backflip. When I saw it on Sunday I was kinda disappointed because everyone was totally hyping this thing up. anyways that was my input so go ahead and cut me down to size, because I know all of you don't think the way I do. Well what do you guys think?
Jeff

 

[JasonJ]

I have not seen it yet but from what is described I too would call it a flair, but thats what a flair is, a back flip with a 360 Yaw rotation. Is it an off axis back flip, well yes, or is it an off axis 360? Hmmmmm, who cares, it sounds cool! I cant wait to see it! I cant wait to see the first flat 360! or even a 180 rolling the landing out backwards! Remeber when you could start a 2 stroke backwards by rolling it backwards :) .

 

[Erick82]

I all have to say is wow, those guys all laid it on the line. Good coverage and I think the judging was pretty good, but I would argue Nate Adams deserved to win.

 

[Okiewan]

Anyone watch Mira get HOSED on the bikes? He SMOKED the guy that won it IMHO, not even close.

I despise judged "sports".

 

[evenslower]

I hear ya Okie, my wife and I watched and our far from expert opinion was the same. Mirra was robbed.

I'd venture to call anything that requires judging more of an activity than a sport. They're definitely athletes, but the subjectivivty kills it for me.

 

[Erick82]

Are you talking about the street or vert comp., because I thought he clearly lost the vert comp., since he wrecked. I don't really recall the street comp.

I kinda agree with you evenslower that anything that is judged isn't a sport, I also think track isn't a sport because you arejust running, but they are all athletes. Just my O.

 

[JasonJ]

It would be cool if like audience vote counted for like 25% of the score, eveyone has a little voter like who wants to be a millionare or someting.

 

[zcookie49]

Yeah, judging sports always throws a bad card. But it seems that lots of sports that are individual and based on technique can only be "judged". I know I have said it before..... Olympics....
Any ideas on how they could alter it ..how about different elements like these, where they can total up scores to actually merritt the points, and not based on opinions....
1. bagging the most tricks in an alloted time frame. giving points
2. rating the tricks at different levels of difficulty. (ie, backflip 10, single foot can 2, etc), giving points
3. combos.
.
the problem comes in when someone introduces a new idea or adds a flair and then the judges use "originality" as a deciding factor. I mean, there is no problems with the step up contest, the clear winners are evident in that event by measurement...
I dont know, just some suggestions...

 

[jinjimbob]

Heres some pix: http://www.tetch.com/pix/xgames/img_4259.htm
http://www.tetch.com/pix/xgames/index.htm

Had fun watching those crazy guys!

 

[stormer94]

Not sure where to vent my frustations, so it goes here.

In the big air contest, Deegan did NOT throw a 360 like the judges seem to think, It was a poorly thrown back flip with about 10 degrees of sideways in it. I've watched it about 30 times because everybody in my house has an opinion of what they saw. He should hang his head and walk off knowing that he is not a better rider, and got lucky in a mis-judged run.

I remember Tony Hawk talking about a mis-announced run in Pensicola Florida. Tony was off the ramp rotating and rotating and sticks it, the crowd goes nuts and the announcer calls it a 900. It wasn't until later that Tony found out that his 720 was announced as a 900. The joke for a while was the 720 was now known as the "Pensicola 900". Same thing here with Deegan. I think all the riders knew it too, you could see nobody was real happy. Whatta ya gonna do, have sour grapes on TV and risk a bad label for yourself?

During a backflip the front tire comes from underneath during a landing, in a 360, it comes in from the side. Also, the body goes 180 degrees in a backflip from the taek-off angle, looks to me as though a correctly executed 360 leaves the body at 90 degrees from the take-off angle. I had to think about that explanation for a while so if it's wrong, cut me some slack. ;)

Nate Adams had a better trick, better executed, during big-air.

In Freestyle, Pastrana was better and made his first 360 attempt while he had time. Deegan landed his after he ran out of time, so did Pastrana. But Pastrana's run was great, he showed the most control and did the 360 attempt during his run, made it or not.

Deegan got lucky with the win in Big-air, because he didn't deserve it.

I give a lot of credit to guys like Bartram and Pastrana, you can see that these guys have so much more talent on a bike than most of their freestyle peers, especially Pastrana. :worship:

 

[JuliusPleaser]

Nate got jacked. His run was flawless. He knows it, Deegan knows it, and Travis knows it. X Games is nothing more than a popularity contest. Travis or Deegan or Metz could ride around on a Briggs minibike and win these "contests". Bartram's run kicked the crap out of Deegan's run, too.

What a joke. :think:

 

[jboomer]

Ya know, I pointed out to my wife that Deegan's "360" in BigAir looked more like a crappy backflip. It was hard to tell though, because it seemed that the camera angle changed (pivoted) during the execution. He played it to the hilt too once he landed! I also agree that Pastrana is amazing to watch! He is so "gangily" and puts so much effort into performing as best as he can! He was flattracking it around the coliseum, jumping the berms and just looked like he was having the time of his life! And he's the first person to give props to the best freestyler out there! He said time and time again "If I didn't do the 360, Nate would beat me! He's the best!"

 

[stormer94]

jboomer,

My son is convinced that Deegans 360 was a crappy back flip as well. In fact, he's calling Degan's mistake a "Backwhip". it's what a back flip would look like if you through in an old school whip. The deal is that Deegan didn't try to, he just didn't crash during a failed trick attempt.