Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Rad!

My one-time NZ road-trip buddy Rad Ross took a major win a few weeks back at the Downieville Classic, smashing up the XC and DH races to claim the overall title of "All-Mountain World Champion". Now while some may say that this title is probably akin to being the World Series champion in baseball (which only features USA teams), it is a great win nonetheless, taking out the 7-time champion and magazine poster boy Mark Weir. Beating a downhill field which not only included Weir but also former DH World Champions and gurus such as Myles Rockwell, Brian Lopes, Greg Herbold, and freeride legend Wade Simmons all while wearing a skinsuit, proves that abundant skill on a bike and lack of taste and dress sense aren't mutually exclusive...
In the XC the field was no less impressive with Canadian guns Andreas Hestler and Chris Sheppard amongst the vanquished.
Not bad for a guy who could drink like a fish all night, smoke a cig or two and still kick my arse solidly, even while crashing hard down the Exit Trail at RotoVegas. Nice work Radness!

1 comment:

Flametop59 said...

The Little League World Series is definitely International. When I was young the teams from Taiwan used to clean up.

The MLB has one team from outside the US. Used to be two but the Montreal did not support the team and it was moved to Washington DC. The player make up of baseball is probably more diverse than any of the other American Sports with large number of players from Central America and some stars from Japan.

I have often wondered why the league has not expanded to Mexico City.

I used to be a big baseball fan but MLB has probably the worse management of all pro sports and they broke my heart.