Place: Newport, Rhode Island.
The Hoffman Sports Association (HSA) was brought in to handle the BMX portion.
For the second year running, ESPN successfully pulled off the ultimate in sports events, bringing together more than 400 of the world's more unusual athletes for seven days of pushing their machines, minds and mettle over the edge at the 1996 ESPN X Games. Several defending champions from last year's;s inaugural Extreme Games showed up to defend their titles against adrenaline junkies from across the globe. They rocked the streets (and waterways) of Rhode Island in nine event categories (biking, bungy jumping, eco-challenge, in-line skating, sport climbing, skateboarding, skysurfing, street luge and water sports) and drew hundreds of thousands of psyched fans to each venue.
Mark Losey, BMX Plus! october 1996: The ESPN X Games has turned into the biggest event in freestyle. This year, I scored a spot on the judging panel so I got to see all the action &Mac222;rst-hand. I have judged contests before but I learned one important thing about judging the X Games real quickly: no matter what tricks any of the riders do, the crowd wants the guy who does the most back&Mac223;ips to win—and they will boo like mad and throw food at the judges if we didn't agree. There is no way I could tell you about every crazy trick that happened in Rhode Island, but I will try to point out some of the biggest highlights of the week. Luckily, the contest is going to be shown all year on ESPN and ESPN2. so everyone with a TV set will get a chance to see all of the action.
Mark Losey, BMX Plus! october 1996: ESPN showed a lot of riding on TV, but there were a bunch of other things happening during the week that never made it on the air. Here are a few examples.
- All of the competitors in the X Games stayed in dorms at local colleg . This was cool because you could hang with your friends and do whatever u wanted, whenever you wanted. It also had its drawbacks. Feel like having a drunken soccer game in the halls at four in the morning ? Go for it. Want to see how many times you can slam your door at 3 a.m. ? Give it a try. Needless to say, there was not too much sleeping going on. There free video games and a giant TV at the dorms, so at least you had something to do when you weren't sleeping.
- During one crazy party in the dorms, one rider got a little too out of control and wound up being banned from the Games.
- Once you made it to the Games, the free goods started &Mac223;owing your way. Nike hooked up every participant with over $150 worth of shoes and clothes, and everyone also walked home with a remote control car and a Monopoly game. Food was provided for the entire week so riders could actually make it through the week without spending a dime.
Mark Losey, BMX Plus! october 1996: Anyone who thinks that freestyle has "sold out" by getting involved in the X-Games could not be further from the truth. All week long ESPN treated the freestylers with the same respect as they do professional baseball players. Whenever riders had suggestions, ESPN listened. When the Games were over, bike riders had won $30,000 in prize money and received so much coverage on ESPN that sponsorship doors must be swinging wide open all over the world. I think ESPN did a great job with this year's Games, and plans are already underway for next year's event (possibly in San Diego, CA). Don't miss it.
Street course.
Rob Nolli.
Joey Garcia.
www.dailymotion.com/benbmx, march 2009: BMX dirt aux Xgames 1996 avec TJ Lavin, Taj Mihelich, Kris Benett, Jay Miron, Joe Rich, Joey Garcia, Tim "Fuzzy" Hall .
Mark Losey, BMX Plus! october 1996: Rob Nolli was on fire during his street runs, and to help put out the fire, Rob was planning to jump from the box jump into the water next to it for his last trick. ESPN said that anyone hitting the water would be kicked out for the week, but then TonyHawk did it on a skateboard and ESPN Ioved it. Go figure.
Press release: Dave Mirra topped his second-place performance in the stunt vert to snare the gold in the stunt street competition with a score of 96.27. Jay Miron took second with 94.93, followed by Rob Nolli of Orlando, FL, with 93.33.
STREET RESULTS: 1-Dave Mirra (Haro) 2-Jay Miron (Schwinn) 3-Rob Nolli (GT/Dyno) 4-Joe Rich (Standard) 5-Mike Escamilla (HB) 6)Rob Sigaty 7)Dave Osato 8)Colin Winkelman
Steve Swope, TWBMX november 2004: We had to build the X Games dirt jump in 1996 and ESPN asked for a materials list. Outside of how much dirt we needed, shovels, and everything else, I put down eight sticks of dynamite, a 40-galLon drum of diesel fuel, and a trash can full of cold ones every night at five. About a week later, the director of competition called me up and said, 'Hey, no problem, everything looks good, but I think we'll have a pretty hard time getting you dynamite.' He took it seriously and I just started laughing.
Press release: Joey Garcia, a former "King of Dirt" took first without ever resorting to a backflip (he did harder, but less flashy -at least to the crowd.tricks), but let the audience know who they were dealing with by boldly taking a "victory run" after his win -and landing a perfect loop. Second place went to Las Vegas native T.J. Lavin, and premier racer Brian Foster took third.
AA Pro Robbie Morales who got bucked, overshot the set, crashed, and broke his collarbone. His crash made all of ESPN's highlight shows.
Specialized's TJ Lavin qualified first by pulling a perfect backflip over the trick set. The crowd loved it, ESPN loved it, and the judges gave it their highest score in qualifying. Flips remainded the crowd favourite in the finals and so did Lavin.
T.J. Lavin, Ride BMX UK october 1998: I was real new. Fresh blood, I didn't know what to do on TV. You don't realise you gonna have to watch that shit later. You do a lot of crazy stuff, act real stupid but it was a really good time. I was 19 and in the running for the win. (...) That last flip in the contest was gonna be a no-handed flip, I'd learnt it that week. As soon as I went into the air I knew I'd blown it. I thought maybe I'd still won.
DIRT RESULTS: 1-Joey Garcia $3000; 2-TJ Lavin $ 2200 3-Brian Foster (Schwinn) $1600; 4-Jay Miron (Schwinn) $1200; 5-Jimmy Levan (S&M) $800; 6-Kris Bennet (S&M) $600; 7-(tie) Vaun Stout (TNT) $300; 7-(tie) Tim Fuzzy Hall $300; 9-Taj Mihelich
Mark Losey, BMX Plus! october 1996: The dirt-jumping contest probably drew the largest crowd of the X Games and it was well deserved. This year the riders had to clear a set of 28-foot doubles before they even reached the 21-foot set that they were being judged on, so this contest was a trailrider's dream. Brian Foster showed up wearing a new full-face helmet and took third after pulling tricks like a super-stylish truckdriver for his last jump. T.J. Lavin was leading the event. but when he did a backfiip for both his fourth and fifth jump, he was relegated to second. First place went to Joey Garcia, who pulled every jump he tried. including an awesome full-barspin straight into a cranked x-up—all while riding with some seriously bruised ribs.
After the results were announced, the crowd started booing like mad. The audience loves the loop, and since TJ. came through with two in a row, they were sure that he deserved the win—especially since the kid who got first never even went upside down. Right about this time Garcia came to the rescue by going out and doing a backfiip just to prove that he could. After that the crowd cooled off a little, but most of us judges changed clothes before leaving the judging tower just to be sure we weren't recognized.
Though he broke his left foot in three places during Street practice, Hoffman did a "MacGyver" on his shoe by shoving metal strips through the sole and rode Vert anyway. He won the Vert title for the second year running, barely edging out Dave Mirra, who again took second place for the second year running.
VERT RESULTS: 1-Matt Hoffman (HB) 2-Dave Mirra (Haro) 3-Jamie Bestwick (Haro) 4-Jason Davies (KHE) 5-Dave Osato (Schwinn) 6-Alex Reinke (Heavy Tools) 7)Rick Thorne 8)Alex Reinke