The X Games double back-flipped through its 18th year of extreme sports, providing no shortage of awesomeness from famous, and infamous, athletes. Records were set, rivalries were reignited and the crashes that come with pushing the limits stunned audiences as some of the world's most fearless athletes competed in downtown Los Angeles.
The event drew familiar faces like longtime favorite Paul "P-Rod" Rodriguez, who won his fourth gold medal in Skateboard Street, setting a record. Jamie Bestwick, 40, made the second six-peat (is that even a word?) in X Games history when he won the BMX Vert competition, and Garrett Reynolds won his fifth gold in BMX Street.
Perhaps one of the most anticipated moments of the X Games came when Travis Pastrana took the wheel during the RallyCross event. However, this year yielded disappointing results when Pastrana was rammed into the wall by Andy Scott, a crash that put both drivers out of action during his qualifying heat. The Games also saw a marriage proposal when Taka Higashino proposed to his girlfriend the night after winning the Moto X FreeStyle event.
As expected, big air is the name of the X Games, and Ronnie Renner and Matt Buyten sharpened their rivalry in the Sony Moto X Step up competition to break Buyten’s world record 37-foot jump. Renner eventually set a new record, outjumping Buyten by 10 feet. While that’s a crazy number to consider, even crazier was 15-year old Mitchie Brusco, who landed the very first MegaRamp 900 during the Skateboard Big Air Eliminations.
This year was a clash of the generations, with old and new athletes alike showing up to assert their dominance. However, right after Brusco landed the first MegaRamp 900, 12-year old Tom Schaar landed two 900s in the second heat, proving that the next generation of riders is going to keep taking the sport into once unimagined frontiers.
For all the results, click here.
The Fast and the Fearless: Athletes Go for the Gold in the X Games
