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The 3rd stop of the 2015 Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour is going down in the infamous Las Ventas bullring in Madrid, Spain. 12 of the world’s best Freestyle Motocross riders were met by two massive landings and a record number nine take-offs. The riders battled it out in the qualification round for the main head-to-head event, and here’s how it played out.
Madrid is known for showcasing the biggest tricks in the game and FMX history being written, not only once. The qualification gave a very nice taste of what to expect when Tom Pages rode himself into the number one qualification spot with a run that probably might have beaten his amazing quarterfinals run from the last event in Athens. The frenchman started with a huge Holygrab before he stomped the Alley Oop Flair over one of the three quarterpipes. A flatspin 360 followed before Pagès landed his stunning signature Special Flip, then a Volt, the trick he did not include in Athens. But that was not enough, he landed the Bikeflip before finishing off his run with an Indy Flatliner… and this was only the qualification round!
Pretty much all of the riders stepped up their game by adding new tricks into their routine. Levi Sherwood added the Flair for the first time into one of his runs, which is not only helping his trick level, but also his use of course scores, landing himself in second place.
Clinton Moore played his the safe card, but stepped it up in his second qualification run including the Bundy to his bag of tricks, finishing in third position. By moving up one spot after the first run he avoided a head-to-head duel in the quarter finals with his countryman Josh Sheehan, who crashed, but got up to his feet afterwards, on a doubleflip, when he came a bit short, leaving him in fifth place.
David Rinaldo finished in fourth by adding the Egg Roll transfer flip to his run of impressive banger tricks like the Doublegrab Hartattack Flip, Volt and California Roll body varials, and combo tricks as Airplane to Helicopter. The Frenchman is definitely a threat for the podium in the main event.
Adam Jones and Taka Higashino both avoided any fancy tricks off the quarter pipes and focused on very well executed clean runs over the regular ramps with a high trick level, including Doublegrab Flips, Rock Solid Flips and other technical stuff, showing that you can still move directly into the quarter finals without touching the quarter pipes.
Maikel Melero, Rob Adelberg, Javier Villegas and Remi Bizouard will all go into the first round and battle it out for the final position into the head-to-head rounds. Local hero Dany Torres decided to not start at all to rest his body after he crashed twice attempting to land the Flair in the track testing session. But the Spaniard is very likely to start in the main competition.
Qualification results
Tom Pages
1st Levi Sherwood
2nd Clinton Moore
3rd David Rinaldo
4th Josh Sheehan
5th Adam Jones
6th Taka Higashino
7th Maikel Melero
8th Rob Adelberg
9th Javier Villegas
10th Remi Bizouard
11th Dany Torres
Catch Red Bull X-Fighters Athens Live tonight on www.redbullxfighters.com and Red Bull TV from 11:30pm (local time).
Stop 4 of the X-Fighters World Tour hits home soil in Pretoria, South Africa on the 12th September. Tickets are on sale here.
Photos by Armin Walcher, Joerg Mitter and Flo Hagena | Red Bull Content Pool
