Mirra Recovers Nicely for His 14th Gold

On Thursday, Dave Mirra collapsed in pain on the floor of Staples Center after suffering injuries to his hip and head following a crash in the BMX vert competition.

Two days later, Mirra stood on the medal stand after winning the BMX freestyle park finals, his record 14th X Games gold.

Mirra, whose 24-karat gold-plated bike shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, debated whether to compete in the bike competition at the Home Depot Center.

“Last night, I thought I wasn’t going to ride because I didn’t even practice yesterday,” said Mirra, who scored an 89.33 in the competition. “But I said to myself there are a lot of cool and great fans here. As long as I didn’t come in last I would have been happy.”

Mirra earned his loudest applause when he performed a back flip tail whip, in which he whipped the frame of his bike 360 degrees above the head tube. He fell about halfway through his set but quickly recovered to finish his run.

“My hip was the main thing I was worrying about,” Mirra said. “I have a big welt there. I didn’t even ride the course, so to be able to medal is kind of like a miracle.”

Mirra, who rode last among the 10 athletes, already had the competition wrapped up by the time his second run came around.

Scotty Cranmer, 18, came in second at 89.00, Ryan Nyquist third at 88.66.

The riders took two runs on the course, with the best overall score winning. Fans booed after several judges’ scores, the loudest coming after Cranmer’s second run.

“The judging was kind of crazy,” said Nyquist, who has medaled 12 times in the X Games. “In my personal opinion, Cranmer edged out Dave, but Dave had a good run.”

In the athletes’ first run, Allan Cooke, who finished eighth, was the only one to complete his ride without crashing.

“It could have been pressure, it could have been nerves, it could have been anything,” Nyquist said. “This is a big event.”

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Jamie Bestwick landed a double tail whip flair, the first time the trick had ever been attempted in competition, and won gold in the first X Games BMX best trick contest.

Mirra took second with a flawless flair tail whip and Chad Kagy landed a flatspin tail whip 540 for third place. Kagy’s trick was also a first for the sport, but the best news for the competitors was that everyone walked away unscathed.

BMX riders had previously expressed apprehension about the possibility of injury in a best trick contest because the format pushes riders to try new things.

Kagy took the hardest spill while attempting a triple tail whip, but walked off and spoke with reporters after the event, saying he was dazed, but uninjured.

“I thought it went well,” Bestwick said. “Nobody got hurt.”

Mirra and Bestwick sat out the last half of the competition after they landed their tricks, fearing trying anything else might be a risk.

“I just decided first trick I’ll do it,” Mirra said. “I’ll get it out of the way and hopefully it’ll work good and then whatever. I didn’t really want to contribute my body parts to that ramp tonight.”

Bestwick has five X Games medals, but this is the first time he has won two golds in the same games. He had previously tried his winning trick only in a foam pit and on a protective plastic-coated training ramp.

“I was just grinning from ear to ear when I knew my pedals were under feet and my bike was pointing in the same direction as the next wall,” he said. “I was more than satisfied with doing that. That’s a pretty wild trick. You don’t see stuff like that happen every day.”

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Australia native Corey Bohan became the first rider to win successive BMX freestyle dirt titles when he earned a 92.66 on his final run of the night.

Bohan, whose score was one point lower than last year, received a standing ovation from the crowd after he performed a front flip, his bike spinning heels over in the air.

“You mix in a couple of decent tricks with a couple of hard ones and the judges seem to like it,” Bohan said.

The 10 riders had three runs with their best score counting in the final results.

“I’m pretty excited about the way things turned out, but it was really nerve racking,” Bohan said. “I didn’t know nobody had ever repeated until I was up on the deck.”

The final run vaulted him past Chris Doyle, who finished as the silver medalist for the second consecutive year.

“I was hoping I had it,” said Doyle, who earned an 89.33 and was quick to congratulate Bohan after his victory. “But I never want to wish that someone messes up.”

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Cara-Beth Burnside hasn’t spent much time on her skateboard lately. She has been busy promoting the sport for the next generation of female riders.

But Burnside showed she’s still the master of the halfpipe. She won her second gold medal in the skateboard vert women’s final at Staples Center, holding off 15-year-old Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins, the defending champion.

Burnside, a 37-year-old from Encinitas, was pleased with her results in the three-year-old competition, which was a 30-minute “jam session” among the five competitors. Her highlight on the halfpipe was clearing a “hip,” a section of the wall that bends outward, and successfully landing on the opposite side.

“I was just stoked to make that,” Burnside said. “I’d never made it before.”

Adams Hawkins, still recovering from a broken wrist and a head wound that required 12 staples, courtesy of a fall while free-boarding at a school near her home in Cardiff by the Sea, said the injuries kept her from performing at her best.

“It was really hard to do all my tricks,” she said. “It took out at least 40% of the tricks I can do.”

Adams Hawkins said she planned to spend some of her prize money on a season ski pass for the Lake Tahoe area.

“I love snowboarding,” she said. “It’s, like, my favorite thing right now.”

Adams said she hoped to mimic skateboarder Shaun White, the first athlete to qualify for the summer and Winter X Games, and qualify in women’s snowboarding.

“I’ll have to make some calls,” she joked. “See if I can qualify.”

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The dominant wakeboarders of the past five years took center stage at Marine Stadium in Long Beach as Danny Harf and Dallas Friday each won X Games gold for the fourth time in five years.

Friday, 18, won her third consecutive X Games gold and has grown accustomed to winning. Since the start of 2004, she has finished first in every competition she has entered.

She dominated Saturday with a score of 59.25, well ahead of runner-up Emily Copeland Durham, who had 55.45 points. Tara Hamilton was third with 53.3 points. Friday was the only rider that did not fall during the women’s competition.

“I definitely wanted to go out there and go big and stand up,” Friday said. “I’m definitely happy to have my third in a row and hopefully make that into four, then eight then 12.”

Harf, 20, of Orlando, Fla., ended a string of three consecutive X Games victories last year but came back Saturday with a strong performance against stiff competition from runner-up Phillip Soven and bronze medalist Josh Sanders.

Harf scored 67.9 points, edging Soven, who had 66.65, and Sanders, who had 66.5.

“Everyone stood up with a solid run,” Harf said. “I was pumped because it was one of our better displays of riding in a contest for sure. All the boys stepped it up.”

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Bob Burnquist, Bucky Lasek and Rob Lorfice were the top three finishers among eight skateboarders who attempted to qualify for today’s big air competition, one of the highlight events at the X Games.

They will join defending champion Danny Way, Andy Macdonald and Pierre-Luc Gagnon, who made the finals based on top-three finishes last year.

Riders must chose to roll in on an 80-foot ramp with a 70-foot gap or a 65-foot ramp with a 60-foot gap. They land in a 27-foot quarterpipe. Most riders Saturday chose the smaller ramp, but Lasek attempted the big ramp for the first time.

“That’s the first time I have ever gone that fast on a skateboard, the largest gap I have ever tried and the fastest knee slide I’ve ever done,” he said.

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Announced attendance at Marine Stadium for the wakeboarding finals was 9,000, up from 7,500 last year, though some fans said they were frustrated by the lack of available parking.

Fans had to park either in a lot at Long Beach State and take a shuttle or find parking on the street in the nearby neighborhood.

“It’s a problem,” an ESPN spokesperson said. “Even for our staff.”

Attendance at Staples Center was announced at 17,164 and at Home Depot Center it was announced at 26,413. The 52,577 total was 26,803 less than Saturday attendance last year, but last year surfing was on Saturday and drew close to 30,000 fans. This year surfing was held Tuesday in Mexico.