If your job is to defy death, you might as well do it in style. Thomas Pagès is quickly becoming a big celebrity in the motocross world, and he has style. Having just shocked and amazed a Madrid crowd at Plaza del Toro de Las Ventas, he has now won last year’s Red Bull X-Fighters World Championship, and is well in the running to win this year’s.
I talked about the recent X-Fighters event in Madrid in a previous article, and now it’s time to talk about the winner. Thomas Pagès is one tough Frenchman. He has been popularized for his special flip (it’s a sort of backflip free of the bike but with a twist) that he nails flawlessly with a clean presentation that doesn’t look like he’s ever grasping at air for the bike, but instead always seems to know exactly where everything is.
However, he now has a new claim to fame, the bike flip. That’s when he spins his dirtbike, an over 200 pound motorized behemoth, at his side, and essentially 180°s while doing so. It’s never been done in a competition until this latest X-Fighters game, a game that is being discussed as one of the greatest collection of tricks and runs in any moto competition yet. The match was in Las Ventas, which was where Thomas Pagès won the championship last year. The next match will be in Munich on July 19th, where the competition will be held in a stage that is floating on a lake; the first time anything like that has been done.
Thomas Pagès has been described as a hot and cold rider, having his steaks but having his dead periods as well, and it could be that the fire he’s shown in Spain could be doused by the lake-top match in Germany. To be in the time of such an innovator of the sport, let’s hope not.
Let’s hope that Thomas Pagès keeps pushing, reaching new limits and shattering them, showing the world just how far you can push motocross. To watch him compete is an adventure with him into fearlessness and insanity. Jaw dropping stuff.
