Ridgway Continues Reign as Limb-Loss Motocross Champ
Chris "Ridge" Ridgway won his fourth consecutive gold medal during the fifth annual Extremity Games (eX5), held May 29 at the Baja Acres motocross facility in Millington, Michigan. In defending his title, Ridgway, a two-time X Games gold medalist, banged bars and kicked up roost with familiar Extremity Games competitors like professional snocross racer Mike "Monster" Schultz and X Games silver medalist and eX5 coordinator Jim Wazny, according to an eX5 press release.
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| Chris Ridgway, #1 plate, holds off Todd Thompson, #206, while defending his title at eX5. Photograph courtesy of Extremity Games. |
"This is where Adaptive Moto X got started, and I'm proud to be a part of it," Ridgway was quoted as saying.
New to the Extremity Games roster were West Coast racers Todd Thompson and Beau Meier, who finished second and third, respectively.
In the limb-difference class, returning X Games gold- and Extremity Games bronze-medalist Sampie Erasmus took gold, and newcomers Shane Shipley and Nick Pappas took silver and bronze, respectively.
"Extremity Games has seen amazing growth over the last five years," said eX5 Executive Director Beth Taylor. "This year we have had a lot of returning athletes, but a lot of new riders as well."
For the second year in a row, Extremity Games teamed up with Adaptive Action Sports (AAS) over Memorial Day weekend to also host a qualifier for the Moto X Super X Adaptive races at the ESPN® Summer X Games 16 that will be televised on ESPN in late July/early August. Newcomer Thompson won the X Games qualifier in the limb-loss class followed by Schultz in second, Meier third, Dave Turner fourth, and Wazny fifth. South African favorite Erasmus won the X Games qualifier in limb-difference followed by Shipley in second, Jesse Gildea third, Ranel Cox fourth, and Darius Glover fifth. Ridgway and Ricky James are also included on the official invite list.
AMA Motocross Hall of Fame inductee Doug Henry attended the eX5 festivities to support the athletes and sign autographs with his fellow adaptive competitors. Henry has been riding and racing in AAS events since a crash in a supermoto race that left him partially paralyzed in 2007, an injury that he is currently recovering from.
"I enjoy seeing the kids [and] how eager they are to go racing," Henry was quoted as saying. "There's a good family atmosphere here, and I'm just glad I came to be a part of it."
Ball Smashes Three-Hour Marathon Barrier
The world's top leg-amputee marathoner has smashed his own world record and a major sports barrier. Rick Ball, a 44-year-old Canadian who started racing just three years ago, ran a 2:57:48 Ottawa Marathon on May 30, snapping the tape four minutes ahead of his 2009 marathon world-record time and scoring the world's first sub-three-hour marathon by a transtibial amputee.
"It feels good to be the first single-leg amputee to break that three-hour mark," Ball told CTV Ottowa. "It's like Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile." He later told reporters that he had gritted out the end of the race after developing stinging blisters on his residual limb. "I was hurting at the end there, but the crowd brought me in," he said.
Ball's coach, Roger DePlancke, trained Ball for the race over the past five months. "He's only been running for three years, but he's been successful at every single step," DePlancke told the Ottawa Citizen. "He's very coachable and goal-oriented; he's very driven."
According to CTV Ottawa, Ball originally decided to take up distance running only after seeing a carbon-fiber running prosthesis for the first time. Running on such a foot, he said, makes him feel "100 percent able-bodied, whole again." Once he decided to run, his first ambition was to run the Boston Marathon. "My coach thought I was nuts," Ball recalled, but he went on to set the transtibial world record there just two years later.
A father of two, Ball works as a Toronto Transit Commission mechanic. The lifelong athlete lost his left lower leg in a 1986 freeway accident when a piece of lumber hurtled off a truck and struck him while he rode his motorcycle. According to his Facebook page, Ball now hopes to compete in the London Paralympic Games in 2012. There, he would be likely to meet the same conditions that brought him to stardom in Ottawa—a famously flat, fast course featuring chilly, slightly rainy weather that cools athletes down to optimum running temperature and primes them for a flat-out push.
