Competitors skateboarding, performing freestyle motocross and speed climbing at previous KIA World Extreme Games Photos: Courtesy of SPORTFIVE Asia

Competitors skateboarding, performing freestyle motocross and speed climbing at previous KIA World Extreme Games Photos: Courtesy of SPORTFIVE Asia

When SMP, the world's largest skate park, opened in downtown Shanghai in 2007, very few Shanghai people knew how to place their feet on skateboards, let alone jump, twist, glide down rails or ramps and perform tricks.

But within a few years the city's community of extreme sports players expanded dramatically as people on the Bund tried parkour (the sport where participants move along a city course overcoming obstacles by jumping, running and climbing), rode fixed-gear bikes along Suzhou Creek and climbed awe-inspiring heights at the Shanghai Indoor Stadium.

The KIA World Extreme Games (WEG), one of the largest annual events for extreme sports, will take place at the KIC Jiangwan Sports Center (346 Guohe Road, 10:30 am to 6:30 pm) in Yangpu district from April 30 to May 3, with some of the world's leading extreme sports athletes competing, performing spectacular death-defying feats on rugged near impossible courses.

With about 70,000 spectators enjoying the event last year, WEG has seen a steady growth at the box office since its debut in Shanghai in 2007. Started as the first international extreme sports event in the city, WEG was called X Games Asia for the first six years and was then upgraded to a World Extreme Games event last year.

Mat Hoffman, the legendary American BMX rider Photos: Courtesy of Mat Hoffman

Mat Hoffman, the legendary American BMX rider Photos: Courtesy of Mat Hoffman

"This contest is a celebration of pushing your limits and giving everything you have to be the best you can be," Mat Hoffman, the legendary American BMX (bicycle motocross) rider, told the Global Times in an e-mail interview.

Known as "The Condor," Hoffman is considered one of the best vertical ramp riders in the history of the sport. He will join the event and ride some of the practice sessions with the competitors.

To pass on the spirit of extreme sports and become more involved with the local community, the event organizers have launched a series of warm-up activities, including an installation artwork Win-Wings created from 100 recycled skateboards, a national competition called Action Time organized by the Shanghai Extreme Sports Association and a first ever "Stunt on the Bund Freestyle Motocross" event.

Competitors skateboarding, performing freestyle motocross and speed climbing at previous KIA World Extreme Games Photos: Courtesy of SPORTFIVE Asia

 

Australian stars

This will see Australian motocross riders Michael Norris and Joel Brown back-flipping their bikes on the Bund with the futuristic skyline of Pudong as their background. This will happen on April 26 at the Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal (1 Taiping Road, 2 pm to 3 pm).

"BMX is a sport in which you are only limited by your imagination and I like to refer to it as 'sport as art,'" Hoffman said, "To be the best at it, you have to be able to relax and be calm when the situation is the most intense and aggressive."

More than 200 of the world's best extreme sports athletes will ride into Shanghai at the end of this month for the games. They will come from 30 countries including Brazil, Japan, China and New Zealand. The games will feature BMX freestyle, aggressive inline skateboarding, speed climbing and international freestyle motocross (FMX). Prominent stars who have confirmed they will compete include Vince Byron, Andy MacDonald, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Mitchell Brusco, the Yasutoko Brothers and Tom Schaar.

Highlights of this year's games include the addition of freestyle motocross, an international ramp to ramp competition, and there will be two new extreme sports demonstrations added to the program - an aggressive inline skate demonstration on the mini-mega ramp and the Madd Gear Scooter Troupe performing each day on the street course.

"Freestyle motocross, with its riders executing gravity-defying flips and reaching awe-inspiring heights, has always been a crowd favorite. Hence, we are upping the adrenaline factor even more this year with the inclusion of the international ramp-to-ramp pitting an Australian team against the rest of the world," Hass Aminian, director of business development for SPORTFIVE Asia, a major partner of the event, told the Global Times.

Motocross racing was born in Europe after World War II and has since grown into a global phenomenon fitting in as an integral part of America's passion for motorsports. Motocross burst onto the scene in the 1980s, became more mainstream in the 1990s and was added to the X Game roster in 1999. One of the key events in motocross is Big Air (also known as Best Trick), in which each rider gets three jumps - usually traveling more than 18 meters from a ramp.

Half-hour FMX competitions or performances will be held twice a day during the games. Regular tickets are available for 200 yuan ($32) per day at the stadium or for 150 yuan per day presale. Tickets for the grandstand are available for 580 yuan per day presale. Call 400-040-6505 or visit http://www.gewara.com/ or smartshanghai.com for details.

Twenty-five-year-old Jiangxi native Zhong Qixing was the runner-up at speed climbing in last year's event. Photo: Courtesy of Zhong Qixing

Chinese involvement

With extreme sports being more and more popular in China, Chinese stars are beginning to emerge on the world scene.

Twenty-five-year-old Jiangxi native Zhong Qixing was the runner-up at speed climbing and 20-year-old Li Zhixing came fourth in street skateboarding at last year's games. Both of them have achieved impressive performances in their fields, something no Chinese athletes had managed previously.

"We're very proud that the event has attracted more and more talented Chinese athletes," Aminian said, "We are constantly thinking of new ways to further engage the community and include more Chinese athletes in the Kia World Extreme Games."

This year, WEG organizers have been running skateboarding contests on school campuses to unearth young athletes with potential.