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Nyquist overcomes at Red Bull Elevation

BMX legend perseveres through injury, broken bike to win by 0.1
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James Foster pulling a Superman over the bottom air at the Red Bull Elevation July 1.

By Andrew Mitchell

If anyone had reason to walk away from Red Bull Elevation, it was California’s Ryan Nyquist.

The 28-year-old BMX legend crashed hard in the qualifiers on Saturday, possibly breaking his wrist — he put off getting x-rays until after the finals on Sunday because he knew he couldn’t compete in a cast. Then, in a training run on Sunday, he broke an axel on his bike. Not having a spare bike to use, he was forced to borrow one. It was the same general size and set-up as his bike, but when you’re flying 15-feet in the air over a hard landing, little differences can be significant.

But Nyquist, who has won every notable BMX dirt jumping contest at least once — including the first Red Bull Elevation in 2005 — has never been one to take the easy way out of anything. He made five unbelievable runs in the finals, alternating between first and second place, before clinching the overall high score over Australia’s Corey Bohan by just 0.1 points. Only the top three of five runs would count.

“I really, really wanted to win it this year, and I wasn’t going to let my wrist and my bike stop me from trying,” said Nyquist. “Yesterday part of me was going ‘please rain, please rain’, and I’d be off the hook.

“I’ve been in a lot of competitions in my career, and I don’t think I’ve ever been in one this close. Every round the stakes went up a lot, the other guys were just amazing. I’m lucky that I managed to finish second in the qualifier, so I could see what everyone else was doing and try to push it a little more. Bohan really pushed me, I mean, point-one — it doesn’t get any closer than that.”

Every rider brought something unique to Red Bull Elevation this year. Nyquist put together long strings of opposite-spinning 360s, and a huge 720. Bohan had a twisting 360 with a backflip, backflips with no-foot and no hand variations, and the biggest superman of the day. T.J. Ellis had a set with a backflip, to frontflip to backflip and was the only rider to backflip over the step-down. Mike Clark landed a double backflip on the top set, then tried to build on it with a front flip over a smaller hip jump in the S-turn section above the step-down. James Foster landed a triple tailwhip, the same move that he invented in the 2005 Red Bull Elevation. Brian Foster had a tailwhip 360, tabletop 360, and can-can 360.

On his last run, Nyquist landed three 360s up top, a 720, a backflip, a 360 over the step-down, and another backflip over the huge gap jump in the village. That was good enough for a score of 92.1 from the judges, pulling Nyquist ahead of Bohan’s third run score of 92.0. Bohan had the last word, but couldn’t top Nyquist’s best run.

“I’m just so happy to be here,” Nyquist said. “This is the biggest dirt jumping contest in the world, and it’s the best dirt jumping contest. Red Bull really takes care of the athletes, and the course is unbelievable. You’re just glad to be invited to something like this, but to win it in front of this crowd is so amazing. Corey (Bohan) really pushed me right to the end.”

While athletes were glad the rain held off, the wind did ratchet up the fear factor — especially heading into the last set of jumps. Nyquist nearly crashed hard on his fourth run, landing on top of the transition of the last jump.

“You really had to take the wind into account,” he said. “That’s why I focused on spinning, you don’t have to take the wind into account as much as you do for a straight air.

“The bottom set was the gnarliest thing of the weekend. Everybody was pretty nervous about it, and I think people were a lot more cautious on the bottom than they would have been if it was a little smaller. It was the only downfall of the weekend — if you didn’t land everything cleanly riding up to it, you wouldn’t have made the transition. We don’t usually hit anything that big in contests or in training. It’s cool, but scary.”

For Bohan, finishing second by a tenth of a point was no big deal.

“It was a such a close contest and so much fun, and anything could have happened,” he said. “I’m just happy with the way I rode. It’s almost better that it was so close because it really came down to the end. It doesn’t get much more exciting than that. It’s good for Ryan, and good for the sport.”

Bohan said he was disappointed that X Games got rid of their dirt jumping BMX contest, but said that Red Bull Elevation did more than fill the void.

“There’s never been a contest like this before, with so many big jumps, and (Red Bull) really pulled out all the stops to build it up and make the riders welcome,” said Bohan.

“The course was a little intimidating — that last jump was huge — but in the end you want your best performances out of riders and I think we got that. I really hope this event keeps going, it’s really the only one of its kind in the world.”

Third place went to veteran American jumper Brian Foster, the oldest competitor at 35 years old.

Nyquist walked away with $10,000, Bohan $7,000 and Foster $5,000.

Following the main competition there was a best trick contest up top. Newcomer Jed Milden came close to landing a backflip with double tailwhip, crashing in all five attempts. However, it was James Foster’s triple tailwhip that would win the $5,000 prize.

A crowd of well over 10,000 spectators turned out to watch the finals on Sunday, and enjoy a free Metric concert hosted by Red Bull.

The qualifier cut down a field of 31 riders to just 12 finalists. Canadians Darren Berrecloth and Matt Beyers did not make the final cut, with mountain bike star Berrecloth finishing 17 th .

Final Results

1. Ryan Nyquist — 92.1

2. Corey Bohan — 92.0

3. Brian Foster — 87.4

4. James Foster — 87.2

5. Chris Doyle — 86.9

6. T.J. Ellis — 86.6

7. Allan Cooke — 86.0

8. Dane Searls — 85.7

9. Gary Young — 85.7

10. Dave Dillwaard — 83.6

11. Mike Clark — 83.1

12. Adam Baker — 81.6