Stephen Murray pulls a double backflip and surprises Ryan Nyquist on his way to gold...

It looked like Ryan was going to have all he needed to win gold in dirt at this years X-Games.  After qualifying first the ball was in his court and he started out big with an incredible run.  Stephen Murray didn't do the big trick in his first run and it looked like he was in for tough times as he pulled dead sailors off the last two jumps.

But, runs two and three made all the difference.  In run two Stephen made a smooth run through the first three jumps and then came back for the final two jumps.  He gained speed over the first double and went full tilt and threw his head back...  one....  two....  perfect landing.  The double flip is now officially here for X-Games dirt.  A huge score for Stephen meant that he just needed a solid final run.  He put it together and walked away one step ahead of Ryan Nyquist.

Ryan didn't let him get it easy though.  After being in first after rounds one and two then dropping to second place, he realized that he had to pull out all the stops.  So that's what he did in the third round.  On the third jump of the six pack he threw out a big 720 only to come up a little bit wrong and wipe-out on the landing.  He made his way up the second start ramp and came down for what would make or break it all.  A solid trick over the first jump then a HUGE backflip 360 over the final jump pulled with perfection.

It wasn't enough.  The fall on the 720 left Ryan about half a point behind Stephen and in the second place, silver medal position.

The dirt setup inside the arena was nothing resembling your average 'trails' setup.  Not only were there no trees around.  There was a monstrous 30+ foot tall roll in to the first jump of a six pack.  At the end of the six pack the riders went up a 25 foot tall roll in and turned around to come back through a four pack.  Sure, that's 'real' dirt riding that you get every day.  Oh well - the jumps had been built by Nate Wessel and the general consensus was that they were good.  Despite the fact that the riders had to hold onto their brakes more than halfway down the first roll in so they wouldn't shoot twenty feet past the landing of the first jump.

I would love to tell you all about what went down in finals and who did what... but I think the photos do a better job of telling the story than I possibly could.  The bottom line on who won and who didn't boiled down to who went highest and was able to pull a decent trick through the most jumps.  If you sketched on a landing, you could count on your score going way down.  If you dead sailored a jump and didn't follow it up with something huge, your score was going down.  In simple terms, the riders had to flow through every jump in both the six pack and the four pack to hope to do well.

Of course, this is ESPN so there is one way around it all.  The riders had three runs and the lowest score got dropped.  So if you had two incredible runs you could sit out for your third run.  If you fell in your first run and had a very low average score, you could have an incredible third run and wind up in first place.  It's not the way life usually works, but it encourages the riders to go bigger if they have the room to spare so that they can get the most points.

Hopefully you all recognize these riders, because beyond Allan Cooke (green bike, green helmet), Ryan Nyquist (white bike, blue helmet), and TJ Lavin (red bike, red jersey) I'm kind of at a loss to tell you who is who.  Yes, I suck...  So next year someone who is totally into dirt send me out an e-mail and we'll see what we can do to get you in to write this instead of me.

For now though I will have to say that I have heard criticism about how the contest isn't 'real' because the course is not an actual trails setup.  This is about as much a load of bullshit as you can possibly get.  It sounds like the whining of little kids who are jealous of some incredible riders, or trying to justify why they feel they suck.  The reality is that the guys who made the cut to the X-Games spent years out on the same trails that every other rider is on.  They shoveled and lugged dirt around, they sweated their asses off.  They fell, they learned they grew.  True trail riders can do big tricks over the lamest of trails - but good trails allows for the big tricks to happen.

The X-Games made damn sure that they had good trails.  No 12 pack or 20 pack - but two sets of jumps in a group of 3 and a group of 2 that allowed the riders to go off.  They did, and until you get the idea of how big the double loop or backflip 360 was, you need to remember that you can't do it yourself yet.  Enjoy the pics!

~P~

PHOTOS
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RESULTS