Pure Aggression

Freestyle motocross boss Nate Adams gets wicked air, makes top dollar and puts himself in serious danger. Is there a limit to how high he can fly?

A A A Comments By Michele Laudig Thursday, Sep 5 2002

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"I was out for five weeks, so I didn't get a chance to try anything new, to come there with anything big," he explains. Then, with conviction, he asserts, "I think if I wasn't hurt, I would've been doing backflips."

Adams doesn't talk as if he might not land a backflip. He knows he can pull it off -- when he's healed.

Irvin Serrano

Shazamm/ESPN

Nate Adams gets revved for the Freestyle Finals at the X Games.

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Tandy adds assuredly, "He hasn't gotten the backflip yet, but he will -- in short order."

It's a sentiment shared by Nate's agent, who had hoped to get a medal out of his athlete in Philadelphia. "If you're gonna wanna win, you're gonna do a backflip," Walker says. "It's that simple." But he's also keenly aware of the stakes. "You are literally taking your life in your hands," he says.

"I would've loved to get a medal," Nate confides. "I've been to three X Games and one Gravity Games and haven't gotten a medal yet. So I just want it really bad. I was just bummed that I was hurt and I wasn't riding 100 percent."

But Adams takes comfort that everyone, including his dad, felt good about his final standings at X Games. Considering his injury, he says, "no one can really expect anything out of me."

"There's about a half-dozen tricks that he can't do now, so to pull out something that got him into the Freestyle Finals was great," his father notes. At Big Air, he reveals, the pain was so bad that Nate almost didn't enter the competition. "He wasn't even sure he was going to go through with it, so I was stoked that he wound up getting fifth."

"A lot of people say, Well, you have to do it now,' like my agents," Adams says, about the trick that, for now, eludes him. Then he becomes visibly more animated, even for a freestyle rider. "I'm gonna backflip because I want to backflip on a dirt bike. . . . I'm not here for anyone but myself."