SAN FRANCISCO -- "The show must go on."

That was the motto Saturday afternoon for the bicycle dirt jumpers who braved 27 mph wind gusts on the end of Pier 30. And while the wind may have won most of the battles against the bikes, the X Games won the three-day war with Mother Nature on the final day of competition.

It wasn't the most artistic display of bike dirt jumping. In fact, you almost felt sorry for the guys perched up on top of the 30-foot roll-in as the wind howled into San Francisco Bay.

	Lavin throws in an X-out during his gold-medal performance in bicycle dirt jumping.

But somebody was going to win amid the chaos and bailouts. That somebody turned out to be T.J. Lavin, who took his second dirt jumping gold in three years. Last year's gold medalist Brian Foster took silver, while Ryan Nyquist backed up last year's silver with bronze near his hometown of Los Gatos, Calif.

"I never thought you could win the X Games doing just a tail whip, an X-out 360 and Superman seat grab," said Lavin, referring to the three tricks he landed before falling on his fourth and final run. "But it happened and I'm really happy I stayed consistent.

"I would have liked to see it come down to perfect runs for everybody, and no wind involved and no bad jumps. But the conditions were the same for everybody. It was mostly luck, if you got a chance to go when there was no wind you could do something a little better."

The prelims where ultimately scratched after being postponed Friday night due to high winds. The competition became a 20-rider final, with each competitor getting four attempts, but only their best three jumps counting toward their final score.

Riders tried to do their usual assortment of 360-tail whips, back flips and combinations off the two biggest jumps on the left side of course. But it became clear early that the headwind was going to make stringing tricks together impossible. The key to the event became getting enough speed down the 55-degree roll-in to do something simple on the first jump and then get fancy on the second jump.

Lavin was the first rider to figure this out, taking the lead with a score of 88.40 on his first jump with a tail whip. He then put a new trick on the end of each of his next two attempts, each of which scored in the 80's for an average of 86.67 heading into his final jump.

Foster took a different route each time, instead opting for the center jump first, but then transferring over to the left side of the course in the air for his second jump. He was the only rider successfully transferring from the center jump to the left side of the course to pull off tricks. The judges rewarded him with an average score of 86.27 heading into the fourth round.

"I never thought you could win the X Games doing just a tail whip, an X-out 360 and Superman seat grab. But it happened and I'm really happy I stayed consistent." -- T.J. Lavin Two-time X Games gold medalist

With less than a half-point separating gold and silver going into the final jump, Lavin tried to seal things with a 360 tail whip to climax his day. But he couldn't find his pedals in the wind and bailed out.

"I've just learned that trick at Woodward (Skate Park) with the boys. I've really got that trick dialed, but I cased the first set a little bit and the wind was blowing like crazy," Lavin said. "I knew it was then all up to 'The Falcon.'"

The door was indeed open for Foster, a.k.a. "The Falcon," to defend his gold. But the wind kicked up just as Foster took off down the ramp and he never got enough speed to make his transfer to the left side of the course.

"I was trying to do the same thing as my third run, but with a lot more tricks. A big transfer and then a good 360-trick, but it never got that far. I missed the roll-in. I didn't have the speed. I knew as soon as I hit backside (on the ramp), I didn't have the speed.

"The conditions were rough, a lot of it had to do with luck and how much wind you got in your run."

Nyquist vaulted 10 spots from 13th to the bronze via the best jump of the competition. The Northern California native, who now lives with Dave Mirra in Greenville, N.C., did an X-out off the first jump and then a huge 360 with a bar spin that earned a score of 90.00.

"I just went for it and said, 'Whatever man, I've got nothing to lose,'" Nyquist said. "I crashed my first two jumps. I just had to do what I had do, and went out there and did it. Conditions were horrible. You just can't deal with (this wind) in dirt jumping, especially being 30 feet up (on a roll-in).

"It was all luck. If you got no wind, you were psyched."