xGames 13 finished up this week… man… 13 years… I remember year one pretty vividly and they just keep getting bigger and bigger. X Games X (10) introduced us to skateboarding’s ”Big Air” which is just insane in my opinion: Riders could choose between two ramps: a roll-in of about 80 feet to a 70 foot 3 inch gap, or a roll-in of about 65 feet to a 60 foot 9 inch gap. Both ramps kicked to a 27-foot 3-inch quarter-pipe. Sending the riders upwards of 50 feet in the air.
This year, someone nearly lost their life. Jake Brown nailed his first trick over the 70 ft gap (the first to successfully land a 720 over the gap) but his board started wobbling up the quarter pipe. He ended up dropping 40 feet and landing on the flat surface at the bottom of the ramp. It’s all over YouTube if you want to see the ESPN coverage, slow motion and all of that and hear the announcers struggle for words… “I can’t believe he nailed the 720″ is uttered as Jake lays unconscious… anyway, here’s a vid from the crowd… you see those things that go flying? Those are his shoes… He is now out of the hospital and walking with a cane, amazingly very little initial damage considering the fall. No telling the lasting effects of the internal damage.