Cameron Sinclair is fortunate to be alive and able to walk, much less compete at a top level in the dangerous sport of freestyle motocross.
But the Australian FMX star, who experienced a near-fatal crash a year ago in Madrid, has climbed back onto his bike and expects to be standing on the podium after Friday night's X Games Moto X best-trick competition.
It's remarkable considering the horrific fall he endured during the 2009 Red Bull X-Fighters competition in Spain. He under-rotated a double backflip and landed chest-and-face-first.
He suffered severe head injuries, a ruptured liver, extensive internal bleeding, a broken shoulder and cheekbone. His situation was touch-and-go for days during what would become an extended hospital stay, followed by months of rehabilitation. Doctors predicted it could take two years for him to fully recover.But Sinclair, 25, was back on his bike eight months later. He recently performed his first double backflip since the accident during an event in Australia (see video below). Last week he made an emotional return to the same X-Fighters competition in Madrid, where he did not feel up to trying a double flip and finished 10th.
Just showing up at the venue, he said, was important from a mental standpoint. "At the moment there are loads of tricks I would love to do, but I am not physically where I would like to be, so I don't want to risk getting hurt again," he said before the competition.
Sinclair, however, has implied that he'll bring a variation of the double flip to the X Games' best-trick competition. His run will be highly anticipated and preceded by several anxious moments for him and his many fans.
Only a few riders have attempted it because there is almost no margin for error. Under-rotating means you splat on your head or chest, with the bike landing on top of you; over-rotating means you land on your back. There's no opportunity to bail to the side or prepare for hitting the ground, as there is with most other tricks.
It's a trick many openly wished would be retired after the legendary Travis Pastrana became the first to land it while competing in the 2006 X Games best-trick competition. Pastrana had practiced the double numerous times while jumping from a ramp into a foam pit. His life-or-death jump -- that's how it was portrayed -- remains arguably the most dramatic moment in X Games history.
Sinclair last year was said to have become the first to land the double in a regular competition (not a best-trick event) at an X-Fighters tour stop in Texas. Soon after in Madrid, though, he approached the jump too slowly and could not complete the second rotation.
His comeback began eight months later at an event before hometown fans in Melbourne. His first double backflip since the horrific Madrid crash was performed in Darwin, Australia. After the successful landing he jumped from his bike and fell to his knees and might have kissed the ground, were it not for his helmet getting in the way.
"It's just such a huge relief to land the double backflip again and leave Darwin in one place," he said afterward. "I've been working so hard to prove to myself that this was possible."
Sinclair, a member of the Metal Mulisha team of riders, has been practicing at the Mulisha "compound" in Temecula, Calif.
"I just hope it goes well there," he said, "and that I can land on two wheels and keep it safe and try my hardest, and we'll see what happens."
-- Pete Thomas
Editor's note: This post also appears on the GrindTV.com FMX blog
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