CHAPTER 1 Going for Gold It’s July 21 2018 Mitchie Brusco stands at the top of the MegaRamp It’s inside a stadium The enormous ramp is 73.5 feet 22 4 m tall Brusco is twenty-one years old He’s competing in the X Games Skateboard Big Air Final He will skate down the ramp Then he will jump over a 50 foot 15 m gap Next he will do a trick off the quarterpipe He has five tries to get the highest score He’s tried three times But he hasn’t landed his quarterpipe trick He’s in ninth place
Mitchie Brusco competed on a MegaRamp set up for the X Games at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis Minnesota Big air skateboarding is a dangerous sport Skaters fall a lot Brusco fell on all three of his runs so far Earlier one skater fell and hurt his stomach Another got hit in the face by his skateboard Brusco wears a helmet knee pads and elbow pads They help keep him from getting hurt But he doesn’t think too much about the danger Doing cool tricks is more important to him
Brusco moves his skateboard to the edge He steps on it to tilt down Then he zooms down the ramp He launches off the middle ramp He does a trick over the gap He starts with his left foot back He makes the board flip under his feet He spins halfway His left foot ends forward He lands it But he can’t celebrate yet He still has the quarterpipe He’s going to try a 1080 Another skater had landed a 1080 first But Brusco was the first to do it at the X Games He did it in Barcelona five years ago But he hasn’t tried since then DEGREES The numbers in the names of tricks are called degrees A 360 is 360 degrees It is the same as one full turn A 180 is half of a turn A 1080 or 1080 degrees is three full turns Only a few skaters can land a 1080
Because big air skateboarders get so high up they’re more likely to get hurt if they fall
