“This victory means a lot to me. This track was challenging to the point of scaring some of the riders.” - Stenberg
For the first time, the Brazilian public could see the greatest stars of international freestyle motocross, and the 30,000 people who packed to a capacity crowd Sambodromo weren’t disappointed: with an impressive performance, American Jeremy Stenberg won the Red Bull X-Fighters Rio de Janeiro, taking his maiden RBXF victory. Swiss Mat Rebeaud and Australian Robbie Maddison completed the podium.
The mix of samba and adrenaline at the Sambadrome was perfect for the local fans, who were treated to the first-ever gold-and-green triumph in an X-Fighters round. Gilmar “Joaninha” Flores beat French rider Brice Izzo 3-2 in the jury’s choice and moved on to the quarterfinals.
The other Brazilian riders not so lucky. In the first battle of the evening, Natan Azevedo was left behind by Dany Torres. Fred Kyrillos was defeated by Eigo Sato, while Gian Bergamini lost to Ronnie Faisst.
The top four in this afternoon’s ranking session went straight to the second round. Maddison overcame Sato, Rebeaud defeated Faisst and Torres beat Norwegian André Villa, protagonist of the most breathtaking moment of the evening when he fell spectacularly upon landing and emerged unscathed, triggering a 30,000-strong cheer. After that, Joaninha was eliminated by Stenberg.
“I knew my chances against Twitch were close to nil, he rocks,” the local hero reckoned. “But I’m proud of my performance. I represented my country well and managed to make it to the second round, which was my main goal – besides leaving in one piece, of course,” he joked.
In the semifinals, Rebeaud beat Maddison while Stenberg prevailed over Torres. In the grand finale, the American and the Swiss – winner of the opening round last month in Mexico – squared off evenly, but it was Twitch (Stenberg) who had the most to celebrate when the dust finally settled.
The next stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters 2008 is in the USA on June 14th and then the tour goes onto Germany and Spain.
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