For the second consecutive year in a row, Los Angeles just witnessed Jamie Bestwick snatch yet another gold medal on vert with some of the most unreal runs ever seen—runs that flowed together and consisted of unbeatable combos. Tricks like an opposite flair downside whips, no handed 540's, and a olley-oop barspin to turndown, downside whips to X and a never-before-seen olley-oop turndown flair!

Bestwick was hot to say the least, but he had some strong competition. Silver medalist and last night's Big Air gold medalist, Chad Kagy nailed some of the craziest tricks to ever see a vert ramp: a barspin to whip, double whips, his signature Superman to barspin, barspin flairs and even a double whip flair! So why didn't he win? From what I gather his double whip flair was a little sketchy and his runs were a little short. Oh well, how can Kagy complain? He got a gold and now a silver medal to check through security on his flight home.

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Moments ago, Brazilian BMX phenom Daniel Dhers put together yet another gold medal winning run in the first ever X Games SuperPark contest. His runs were hands-down the most flawless, and they were filled with great tricks and style. Dhers started his final run with a huge double tailwhip transfer and ended it with a 720 over the spine, which went straight into a flair on the quarter. These tricks combined with the fact that he never once looked uncomfortable or squirrelly were what ultimately gave him the victory.

Winning gold wasn't an easy task, though, and we saw a lot of great riding from riders like Diogo Canina, Ryan Guettler and Rob Darden. They gave Daniel a run for his money. In the end, the top three finishers were Dhers (gold), Diogo Canina (silver) and Rob Darden (bronze).

Darren Hendrix

Dher's your champion.

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With SuperPark finals getting underway, I noticed that three riders from Australia made the trip over to ride this event: Ryan Guettler, Corey Bohan and Steve McCann. Two of these Aussies successfully made it past prelims and into the finals. Come to think of it, it's looks like there must be something in the water over in Australia, because there are a lot of good BMX pros in the sport coming from Down Under. To figure out why Aussies are so good at BMX, I asked each of them three questions.

1. How does BMX in Australia compare to BMX in the U.S.?
2. Is there certain camaraderie between the Aussie riders? Competitiveness?
3. Why are there so many Australia pros in the U.S.?

Ryan Guettler
1. "I think the kids in Australia really do it just to have fun until they're old enough to get a car. Then they vanish and you never see them again unless they come over here. In the U.S. you see a lot more older riders that stick with it and in Aussie, once they've turned 18 they're usually done."
2. "We all hangout out at contest and have fun. There's no competitiveness really between us because we've all grown up riding together doing demos, contests or for fun."
3. "If you're from Australia and you make that commitment to put everything you got on the line to come over and compete you try much harder than if you lived in America and could ride contest whenever. In Australia, we don't have enough contest and events to make a living off so if you make it to the States you don't want to waste your opportunity."

Corey Bohan
1. "A few years ago it was pretty chill back in Auss, but I think right now it's up to speed, so many kids up and coming have mad skills. I think it's pretty even now with the U.S. so it's no bad at all."
2. "For the most part, I think it's pretty friendly competition. Were all out here competing individually but you still want to win so I guess it's a little competitive. It's nothing personal against anyone, were all out there doing it for ourselves, so it's all good."
3."That's a really good question, it's crazy the amount of Aussie rider that are doing really well. I couldn't answer the question as of why, but I'm really stoked about it!"

Steve McCann
1. "The scale of people in Australia that appreciate the sport is unbelievable. Even though there aren't as many riders in Australia as the U.S., their love and passion for the sport seems to be a lot stronger."

2. "You know what, there's always competitiveness amongst everybody. It's not just the Aussie guys but everybody's always stoked, it's always good to see the Australian guys doing well. Everybody's just stoked that all the Aussie guys are over here killing. That's why my I'm over here at the SuperPark course right now rooting on Ryan Guettler ... but I'll also be rooting for my boy Daniel Dhers."
3. "Well, I think it's like I said in the first question. There is a lot of passion involved in riding bikes. The will to succeed and try stuff ... I guess it all just comes down to the more you love something, the more you're going to succeed at it. It seems like a lot of Aussie have that passion.

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HOLY CRAP! Where to begin?! Well, the Big Air Finals just wrapped up and it was by far the best Big Air competition to date. As predicted, Mirra unleashed his exclusive helicopter flip over the Big Air gap—not once, but twice! He landed both flawlessly; the second one he followed up with a huge flair tailwhip on the quarter, which put him clearly in first place.

But just when everyone thought Mirra had clinched the gold, Chad Kagy anted up with a flawless run that will go straight onto the record books: He flip-whipped the 70-foot-gap and followed up on the quarter with his massive signature trick, a flatspin flair-whip that went almost 20 feet into the Staples rafters.

Cody York

Kagy, showing off his signature flatspin flair-whip to all the people sitting in the nosebleed seats of the Staples center.

All I know is that both Mirra's run and Kagy run were so ridiculous I'm glad I'm not one of the judges. They both deserved gold. Here are their comments on the night:

Dave Mirra
"Overall on the action, I'm really, really psyched. Everybody rode great. I'm psyched on silver. I thought that they judged the jump a little low, though. I thought that that was pushing Big Air, the gap. Everything else was flipped; we all know that, we all flipped it. At the end of the day, I think they judged the quarterpipe way too much. Yeah, vert's one thing, but the gaps another thing, too. There are jumpers in this world and there are vert riders, and there are people that can do both. I was a little discouraged, but at the end of the day what do you do? But I'm psyched that I pushed the gap—I didn't really see anyone do that. I guess I just gotta go a little bit higher on the quarter next time!"

Chad Kagy
"I'm stoked everything worked out well for me, but what I'm actually more excited about is that all 7 of us are walking away from that massive ramp. Dave, as always... I can't tell you, it surprises me 100 percent. He came in so motivated... Dude, a no handed 360 flip, 50-foot&perfect, two times! He's never even tried that thing before! I'm amazed. I'm just stoked everybody's safe, and 20-foot flair whips don't suck!"

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