Chad Kagy's First Run is Golden. Is an X Games Hat Trick in the Cards?

Aug 05 2006 / Los Angeles, CA

After watching a few days of practice sessions on the X Games 12 ramp leading up to today's Vert final, Lat34 photographer Jared Souney and I made the prediction: Chad Kagy's been looking like a winner all week.

PHOTO GALLERY Check out pics from BMX Vert finals at the X Games.  VIEW GALLERY >

Still, nothing we saw in practice prepared us for the run we saw tonight: Kagy dropped in fast, hitting huge airs on every wall and blasting his biggest tricks right from the break. A giant flat spin tail whip and a bar spin flat spin were highlights in a nearly flawless run, and his score of 93 stood strong.

We also predicted some serious competition, and declared it anybody's game. Everyone delivered on that promise as well, making X Games 12 a supreme showcase of the state-of-the-art of BMX circa 2006: Simon Tabron threw clean 900s in both of his runs, Kevin Robinson landed a no-handed opposite flair in round 2, and Tom Haugen stomped a double tailwhip.

Jamie Bestwick came damned close to beating Kagy with a run including a Superman seat grab over 12-feet high, back-to-back tailwhip and opposite whips, and a sick fastplant flair at the buzzer.

The Vert final could just as well have been a Best Trick contest; the fact that riders are consistent enough with tricks like these to put them into the middle of runs shows how far and how fast BMX has come in recent years. It also means the Best Trick contest tonight is going to be sheer spectacle.

We'd like to see Kagy win there too, because we're picking him for the Megaramp Big Air as well, and we'd like to see an X Games hat trick.  Tabron has some 900 variations in the works and hopes to reclaim retain his Best Trick title; Jamie Bestwick is always full of surprises, and Keith McEthinnney has a little something called a lawn dart – some kind of front-flip flair that everyone is talking about –up his sleeve.

As always, stay tuned to Lat34 for the full report.

– Colin Bane