By BRUCE DENNILL
Freestyle Kings Live / DP World Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg
Freestyle motocross is not a common event theme in mainstream South African entertainment circles, with many in a live showcase of the sport having previously mostly watched it on such platforms as the televised X Games. Holding Freestyle Kings Live in a local sporting cathedral like the Wanderers cricket stadium helps make it feel like a real event, adding scale and theatricality. For this reason, the staging – for all of the noise the motorcycles, starting and ending fireworks and other pyrotechnics and strident hosts – is strangely restrained. Rather than a transformed arena with a full dirt track with enormous jumps, the set-up features three narrow steel ramps with a couple of wider, cushioned landing areas, positioned in a third of the Wanderers outfield, with fans seated on two levels at that end of the stadium.
It’s probably unfair to compare that reality to an imagined scenario, but freestyle motocross is a brash sporting niche. After all, its leading personalities and their handlers are as loud as confident as you’d expect from men (and the occasional woman) who purposely fling themselves high into the air on heavy machinery at considerable speed, and all have dozens of broken bones to prove it. A technical detail – no bass speakers on the upper level of the stands – also meant that hearing the announcements and names of the athletes was rather difficult for at least a portion of the crowd.
All of this said, the appeal of the sport becomes clear the moment the first rider detaches himself from his bike 10 or more metres in the air, stretching out behind it before grabbing a mudguard and elegantly reeling himself in and repositioning himself on the saddle in good time to land without a hitch. There is a limited suite of tricks that the riders can include in their routines, but it’s impossible not to be thrilled by the obvious danger involved in what they do, twisting and flipping bikes that weigh over 100kg and contorting themselves to add degrees of difficulty and excitement to proceedings. It’s also evident that all of these riders are top-notch athletes, with all but one of the motorcycle jumps landed smoothly and the exception involving a smooth rolling away from oncoming jumpers before rejoining the action.
The BMX jumpers are helped in their acceleration by a winch that pulls them most of the way to the ramp, and the audience soon becomes aware that the physics involved is completely different as the much lighter bicycles don’t behave the same way in the air as the dirt bikes, and their smaller wheels and saddles mean nailing a perfect landing is a challenge – which most of t her riders get right most of the time.
All the riders impress (though Ronnie Mac takes on a slightly different role, playing the clown to the others’ more serious performances), with Pat Bowden, Robbie Madison and Rob Adelberg, in that order, being the most consistently conspicuous standouts. Interestingly, for such an alpha male scenario, there seems to generally be good grace and mutual support among all the riders, with enthusiastic applause from those who have completed their jumps and are watching their colleagues performing theirs.
All in all, the Freestyle Kings provide an enjoyable evening out for newcomers and a masterclass in technique and athleticism for bike riders and motocross enthusiasts.
