BMX Event
X Games
The X Games is ESPN's annual action sports event, running since 1995, that brought BMX vert, street, park and dirt contests to a mainstream TV audience.
Updated 4 min read784 words
The X Games is an annual action sports contest created and run by the American broadcaster ESPN. It started in 1995 and has featured BMX freestyle events in every edition since, alongside skateboarding, motocross and other sports. For most of its history it has been the single biggest television stage for freestyle BMX, and winning an X Games gold medal became the clearest marker of a rider's contest career for a generation.
History
ESPN launched the event in June 1995 in Newport and Providence, Rhode Island, under the name Extreme Games. The network wanted a youth-oriented summer sports property and packaged skateboarding, BMX, inline skating, street luge and other sports into a single televised festival. The name changed to X Games for the second edition in 1996, and a Winter X Games followed soon after.
BMX was there from the start. Vert was the flagship bike event in the early years, and flatland also ran in the first editions before being dropped. Dirt jumping and street-style courses were added in the first few years, and over time the programme settled into vert, park, street and dirt. A BMX Big Air event, run on a huge roll-in and quarter-pipe shared with skateboarding, was introduced in the late 2000s. Vert was later removed from the programme as the discipline shrank, while street was added as a stand-alone event in 2008.
The event moved between host cities over the years. It spent long stretches in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Austin, with later editions in Minneapolis and California. ESPN also ran international X Games events in Europe, Asia and South America in various years.
Format
Each BMX discipline is run as a separate medal event with its own course. Riders are invited rather than qualifying through open entry, and fields are small, usually around ten riders.
The exact format varies by discipline and year, but the pattern is similar:
- Riders take timed runs on a purpose-built course, typically 60 to 90 seconds for park and street.
- Judges score each run on difficulty, variety, style, use of the course and execution.
- In most years the best single run counts, although some editions have used a jam format where riders take turns over a set time and are scored on their overall performance.
- Dirt events are judged on a set number of jumps through a line of large tabletop and double jumps.
- Big Air is judged on individual attempts over a mega ramp gap followed by a quarter-pipe.
Gold, silver and bronze medals are awarded in each event.
Notable moments
- Mat Hoffman won the first two vert titles in 1995 and 1996 and remained the reference point for vert riding in the early years.
- Dave Mirra became the most decorated BMX rider in X Games history, winning medals across vert, park and street for well over a decade. In 2000 he landed a double backflip in competition, widely cited as the first in a contest.
- Jamie Bestwick put together a long unbroken streak of vert gold medals in the late 2000s and early 2010s, a run that is still considered one of the most dominant in the event's history.
- Garrett Reynolds won the first stand-alone street gold in 2008 and went on to win the event more times than any other rider.
- Ryan Nyquist collected medals across park and dirt over a career that stretched from the late 1990s into the 2010s.
- More recent medallists include Dennis Enarson, Kevin Peraza, Chase Hawk, Chad Kerley and Logan Martin, while a women's park event was added in the 2020s.
Significance
Before 1995, BMX freestyle contests were mostly organised inside the sport by magazines, brands and sanctioning bodies, and reached riders through videos such as Props rather than television. The X Games changed that. ESPN's coverage put BMX in front of millions of viewers each year, and the medal count gave sponsors and the mainstream press a simple way to understand who the top riders were.
The exposure had a direct effect on the industry. Bike sales rose during the late 1990s boom, riders such as Mirra and Hoffman became household names, and video game and toy licences followed. It also shaped the direction of contest riding: the prize money and television format rewarded big, clean, high-scoring tricks, which pushed progression in vert, park and dirt through the 2000s.
The event's influence waned somewhat as web edits gave street riding its own audience, and as the Dew Tour and later the Olympics added other high-profile contest stages. Even so, the X Games remains the longest-running major BMX contest and still carries weight with riders, sponsors and fans.
Related
Frequently asked questions about X Games
When did BMX first appear at the X Games?
BMX was part of the very first event in 1995, when it was still called the Extreme Games. Vert and flatland were among the earliest bike events, with dirt and street following in the first few years.
Which BMX rider has the most X Games medals?
Dave Mirra holds the record for BMX medals at the X Games, with more than 20 across vert, park and street events during his career.
Is BMX still at the X Games?
Yes. The exact list of BMX events changes from year to year, but park, street and dirt have remained regular fixtures in recent editions.
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Vert
Vert is the BMX discipline of riding a half pipe with walls 10 to 13 feet high, launching airs above the coping and performing tricks before dropping back in.
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Park BMX is the discipline of riding skateparks, linking airs and tricks across ramps, bowls and box jumps, and is the format used in most major contests.
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Street BMX is the discipline of riding urban architecture such as ledges, rails, stairs and banks, with video parts rather than contests as the main measure.
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Dirt jumping is the BMX discipline of riding packed earth jumps, performing tricks over the gap between a take-off lip and a landing, often in contest form.
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Flatland is the BMX discipline of performing balance and rotation tricks on flat ground with no ramps, using a short bike with zero offset forks and four pegs.
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Dave Mirra was an American BMX rider whose record run of X Games medals from the mid 1990s to the late 2000s made him the most decorated rider of his era.
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