It turned out that X Games Barcelona saved the best for last.As the games wound down Sunday afternoon, the final event on the schedule was the Go Pro BMX Big Air event and it took a new trick to bring home the gold medal.
While fourth place was separated by just two points, it was 24-year-old Zack Warden who won, taking home his second straight gold medal in the event. The other – the first of his career – came last month in Brazil.
Warden won the finale thanks to a new backflip bike flip late tailwhip combo over the MegaRamp gap and then followed it up with a triple tailwhip more than 13 feet above the lip of the 27-foot quarterpipe.
It was a trick that Warden had been struggling with recently, but seemed determined to land, knowing the payoff could be huge. In Brazil, Warden attempted the bike flip to late tailwhip in practice – as well as the competition – but he was unable to pull it off. Clearly it was a trick he had stuck with over the last month and it turned out that the hard work finally paid off.
With the cameras on him atop the MegaRamp, Warden dedicated the trick to his mother and wished her a happy birthday. After the event, he made it clear that trick progression was the key to success.
“With BMX Big Air, this is the simplest, biggest thing we’ve got and it’s up to us to push ourselves to always try to bring new stuff to the table, so who knows what the possibilities are with this ramp,” Warden admitted to ESPN. “It’s up to us to find out.”
Warden wasn’t the only one making big strides.
Fourth place finisher Chad Kagy showed off a new freestyle motocross-like cliffhanger backflip over the gap, while bronze medalist Colton Satterfield pulled off a nifty 360 decade backflip over the gap. Silver medalist Vince Bryon might not have landed anything new, but he was the only rider able to land a 540 on the quarterpipe of the MegaRamp, which earned him the second spot on the podium.
With Warden now two-for-two this summer, he’ll likely be one of the top storylines as the games now move to Munich, Germany before heading back to the familiar scene of Los Angeles.
Ed is an MMA/Extreme Sports contributor for CraveOnline Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @PhillyEdMiller, and subscribe on at Facebook.com/CraveOnlineSports.
Photo Credit: Getty
