Mirra simply marvelous on street
By Daniel Dodd,
ESPN.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- Make it nine ... and most likely counting.
That's how many X Games medals Dave Mirra now has after his gold-medal
performance Saturday afternoon at the bicycle stunt street finals. Mirra
is the most decorated X Games athlete to date with seven gold medals and
two silvers.
Mirra, 25, has won the street event every year since it was introduced in 1996. And he doesn't show any signs of letting up.
| |  | | Mirra nailed down his seventh career X
Games gold medal. |
Mirra's first run, in which he pulled out some new tricks, set the crowd
into a frenzy. He performed a flurry of tricks including an X-up on the
vert wall, a no-handed 360, and an amazing one-footed X-up backflip that
lead to a final score of 92.9 and yet another gold medal.
"My first run went exactly how I wanted," Mirra said. "That one-footed X-up
back flip, I was pretty psyched about landing that one."
In his second run, despite coming close to crashing on a 360 transfer,
Mirra continued to dazzle the crowd. He managed to land a tailwhip 360, a
truckdriver and a no-handed to no-footed back flip. But afterwards, he was
still psyched about his first-round performance.
"That first run, I couldn't top it again if I tried," he says.
Right behind Mirra, with a score of 90.20, was the "Canadian Beast" Jay
Miron. Miron ignited the crowd with a first run that included a string of
aerials and a superman tailwhip. He finished second to Mirra for the
third time in four years.
"I'm pretty happy with my run," Miron said. "My main goal out here was to
just have fun."
California native Chad Kagy, turned in a solid performance to claim the
bronze medal with a score of 86.7.
Mirra will now turn his attention to the vert competition in which he has
won two consecutive gold medals. Practice starts Sunday, followed by the
preliminaries on Monday and the final on Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. PT.
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