We admit we wouldn’t usually post an article like this, but we’re always quick to showoff Australian athletes, and we thought this was awesome!
Australian Josh Sheehan double-backflipped his way to a spectacular victory at the Red Bull X-Fighters stop in Munich, a mid-summer fairytale on the first floating FMX track ever that threw the championship battle into a heated two-way contest ahead of the season finale in South Africa.
Josh Sheehan beat Taka Higashino of Japan in an action-packed Red Bull X-Fighters final in Munich on Saturday under brilliant blue skies and sizzling temperatures in front of 18,000 frenzied spectators on a first-of-its-kind freestyle motocross track built on the Olympic Lake.
Sheehan powered his way to his second career win and first victory since 2011 with the perfectly executed Double Backflip, a Flair and a Double Grab Backflip that had the big German crowd on its feet and begging for more of the mid-summer fairytale.
Sheehan’s victory, which was worth 100 points, also tightened the Red Bull X-Fighters championship battle as itslashed the lead of World Tour leader Levi Sherwood (NZL) to just five points ahead of the season finale in Pretoria, South Africa on August 23.
Sherwood, who leads the World Tour with 265 points to Sheehan’s 260 points, had to settle for his second straight third place while local hero Luc Ackermann, just 16 years old, delighted his home crowd watching from the shores of the picturesque lake with a stunning fourth place in his first Red Bull X-Fighters competition, a best-ever result for a German that kept the nation’s sporting festival rolling week after Germany won the World Cup in soccer.
“Doing that Double Backflip was a bit scary,” said Sheehan, who celebrated the victory with an impressive backflip dive without his bike off a dirt ramp into the lake upon which the world’s first floating FMX track was built out of 260 floating pontoons.
“It’s amazing to win in front of a great crowd like this,” added Sheehan, the only rider in the field who has mastered the mind-boggling Double Backflip – which he nailed in Qualifying on Friday as well as in Saturday’s quarter-final, and in his semi-final victory over Sherwood before doing it again in the final.
“It’s a bummer that Sheehan beat me in the semis,” said Sherwood. “I think I rode as well as I could. We’ll see what happens now in South Africa.”
World Tour Standings: 1. Sherwood 265 points, 2. Sheehan 260, 3. Pagès 190, 4. Torres 185, 5. Higashino 150, 6. Adelberg 120, 7. Bizouard 110, 8. Jones 75, 9. Rebeaud 70, 10. Melero 60
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