Daredevil Rider Backflips Over
Tower Bridge
Published: 14
July 2009
Freestyle motocross star Robbie Maddison took London by surprise
last night as he performed a spectacular backflip over an open
Tower Bridge in the British capital. The 27-year-old Australian
took to the air at 2.55am and soared nearly one hundred feet over
the Thames.
London, 13 July 2009. The early hours of Monday morning saw
Maddison become the first rider in history to take on Tower Bridge
on a motorbike. The Australian used the famous London landmark as a
take-off and landing ramp as he cleared the gap above the Thames
after the iconic bridge had been raised. With an approach speed of
approximately 40 mph, Maddison took off from the north side of the
bridge, performed a no-handed backflip, and held his landing in
front of the south tower of one of the World’s most famous
sights.
Maddison joined forces with Red Bull once again to make his UK
dream a reality, having already chalked up the world’s longest ever
motorbike jump (106.9m), and the highest ever vertical ‘step up’ at
the replica Arc de Triomphe in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve 2008
(25.9m).
Maddison said: "The whole experience was awesome. Since the
jumps in Las Vegas I’ve been set on doing something special here in
London so the Red Bull team and I have been secretly scoping out
Tower Bridge for months. We had a matter of minutes on the bridge
and had to time everything to the second, there were so many
factors to get right, but we pulled it off.
People say I’m crazy, but I just want to push the boundaries of
my sport and my body to the limit and I love taking on these huge
challenges. It was an incredible feeling to fly between the two
towers and over the Thames."
Maddison will return to London on 22 August to take part in the
final stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour 2009 at Battersea
Power Station.
Many people helped make this event possible, including Visit
London Visit London and
the owners of Tower Bridge, the City of London Corporation.
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