XG Research 2021 Update 6.28.21
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X Games 2021 Research Update for June 28, 2021 Attached and below is Research’s first X Games 2021 packet. I've also attached the Master Athlete List for XG 2021 that is current as of today, June 29. Updates from X Games Research will be frequent. Let me know if you want off this list or would like someone added to it. Thanks. Look Out Below! • This Update contains an overview of X Games 2021, including medal disciplines, athlete numbers, etc. • A gold medal edition: Included below are profiles on former X Games champs Leticia Bufoni, Kevin Peraza and Jimmy Wilkins. Pat Casey -- two-time X Games medalist and the host of four XG 2021 BMX contests -- also is featured. Say What? (All quotes provided directly to X Games researchers unless otherwise noted.) --Leticia Bufoni, on competing at X Games a week before the Olympics: “X Games has always been really important for me, and I think it’s important to remember that skateboarding wouldn’t be in the Olympics at all if not for X Games. X Games is the reason I first came to the U.S. in 2007, and it’s the reason I’m still here and have had any of the success I’ve had. I love everything X Games has done for me and for skateboarding. So, no matter what else is going on, every time they say there’s X Games happening, I’m the first one to want to go.” X Games 2021 Competition Overview • Dates: July 14-18 • Where: 3 locations in Southern California: Pat Casey’s backyard (Dream Yard) in Riverside; Axell Hodges’ compound (Slayground) in Ramona; and the California Training Facility (CATF) in Vista. • X Games 2021 is the 62nd X Games. Reminder: The official name of the event is X Games 2021. Research often shortens the name to XG 2021 when referring to the event in writing. Overview • X Games 2021 will feature roughly 80 athletes. • Medal disciplines: 17 • 43 medals will be awarded: gold-only for BMX Dave Mirra’s Park Best Trick, BMX Dirt Best Trick, SKB Street Best Trick, SKB Vert Best Trick. • Gold/silver/bronze for the other 13 disciplines. The below is accurate as of June 28: • Oldest athlete: Bucky Lasek, 48, Skateboard Vert • Youngest: Gui Khury, 12, Skateboard Vert/Vert Best Trick • Number of countries represented: 11 • Number of U.S. states represented: 11 X Games 2021 Disciplines: • BMX: Street Dirt Dirt Best Trick Park Dave Mirra’s Park Best Trick • Skateboard (tri-code SKB): Men’s Street Men’s Street Best Trick Women’s Street Men’s Park Women’s Park Vert Vert Best Trick • Moto X (tri-code MTX): Freestyle Best Trick QuarterPipe High Air Best Whip 110s The Venues --Pat Casey’s backyard (Dream Yard) in Riverside, CA --Axell Hodges’ compound (Slayground) in Ramona, CA --California Training Facility in Vista, CA Dream Yard • 4 X Games 2021 BMX contests will be held in Pat Casey’s backyard in Riverside, CA: Park, Park Best Trick, Dirt, Dirt Best Trick. • Dream Yard is comprised of more than 10,000 square feet of BMX features. • Pat began building Dream Yard in 2013. Several major additions have been made since then. • For more, see researcher Nicole Dreon’s Update piece on Pat Casey below. Slayground • All X Games 2021 Moto X contests will be held at Axell Hodges’ compound, Slayground, in Ramona, CA. • Slayground sits on 15 acres. Hodges plans to develop more of the surrounding property. • Ramona is northeast of San Diego. Slayground is in the hills outside the town of roughly 21,000 people. California Training Facility (CA|TF) • All X Games 2021 Skateboard contests and BMX Street will be held at CA|TF in Vista, CA. • The facility was finished in December 2017. The building is 30,000 square feet. SKATEBOARD Bufoni: “I Want to Be Remembered as the Best” Leticia Bufoni is the most decorated woman to compete in X Games Skateboard. The four- time Women’s Street champ owns 11 total medals, including 2013 Real Women gold. Her 10 Street medals (10) is tops in the discipline’s history, and she’s tied with Elissa Steamer for most Street gold. And she’s not done. Bufoni says those kinds of career stats are newly important to her, and that hanging out with high-profile athletes from other sports over the last few years has hardened her resolve to stack gold, blaze past personal heroes like Steamer and set new records of her own. “I never thought I’d be friends with someone like Lindsey Vonn, or Neymar, or Gabriel Medina -- all these people who, whatever they do, are the best at what they do,” Bufoni says. “Being around them makes me want to keep going in skateboarding for as long as I’m still capable of winning, because I want to be remembered as the best in my time. This next generation of girls in skateboarding is coming up fast, and I want my records to be the bar they have to reach, just like I’ve had to catch up to what Elissa did before me.” Younger Brazilian skaters like Pamela Rosa and Rayssa Leal consider their countrywoman Bufoni a mentor and role model, as do many of Leticia’s 2.8 million Instagram followers. “It’s amazing to see how all these girls are killing it now -- they’re doing so good!” Bufoni says. “It’s also amazing to hear them say that I’ve inspired them. To have girls from all over the world say that watching me at X Games helped encourage them to skate makes me feel blessed to be in this position. “My whole life I’ve focused on two things: Showing my dad how good girls can skate, because he didn’t believe it in the beginning, and being that person I didn’t have to look up to when I started skating in Brazil and was looking for role models,” she continues. Bufoni is competing at both X Games 2021 and the Tokyo Olympics (one week later, on July 25). She finished the qualification process for the Olympics in 4th place overall. She’s one of just three skaters on the athlete list for both events (Sky Brown and Poppy Olsen are competing in Women’s Skateboard Park at X Games and in Tokyo), and says it’s a point of pride for her. “X Games has always been really important for me, and I think it’s important to remember that skateboarding wouldn’t be in the Olympics at all if not for X Games,” Bufoni says. “How could you choose one over the other? X Games is the reason that I first came to the U.S. in 2007, and it’s the reason I’m still here and have had any of the success I’ve had. I love everything X Games has done for me and for skateboarding. So, no matter what else is going on, every time they say there’s X Games happening, I’m the first one to want to go.” Most X Games Gold By a Woman Total Sport Lindsey Jacobellis 10 Snowboard Jamie Anderson 8 Snowboard Kelly Clark 7 Snowboard Fabiola Da Silva 7 Aggressive In-Line Chloe Kim 6 Snowboard Leticia Bufoni* 5 Skateboard Kelly Sildaru 5 Ski *Competing at XG 2021 (other women with 5 gold are now retired from competition). • DOB: April 13, 1993. Age: 28. • X Games medal count: 11 -- 5 gold, 3 silver, 3 bronze, including Real Women 2013 gold. She owns the most medals in X Games Women’s SKB Street history (10) and most overall SKB medals of any woman (11). • Bufoni’s 4th SKB Street gold at XG Shanghai 2019 tied Elissa Steamer’s record for most titles in the discipline, a mark set in 2008. Bufoni matched another Elissa Steamer highlight in 2020: she’s now a playable character in Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Steamer was the only woman featured in the original game in 1999. Bufoni says playing the game as a kid was her first introduction to the name Elissa Steamer and to nearly everything about pro skateboarding outside of Brazil. • Could tie Lindsey Jacobellis for 3rd-most medals of any woman at X Games. Currently: Jamie Anderson (19), Kelly Clark (14), Lindsey Jacobellis (12). • Plagued by foot and ankle injuries in 2018 and 2019, Bufoni says the pandemic cancellation of her busy contest calendar turned out to be just what she needed. “I broke my foot twice in 2019, so I needed to rest and get my body in shape again. As terrible as the pandemic has been, I realize now that I needed that time off.” • Bufoni, a tremendous all-around athlete, incorporates soccer, yoga, weightlifting, swimming, surfing, wake surfing, BMX and dirt bikes into her cross-training. She’s also been indulging her love of cars. “Over the pandemic I started doing a lot of drifting and racing, and I’m building my racecar right now. I’m really excited.” In August 2020, she drove a Formula 4 racecar in Spielberg, Austria. “It’s addictive! I’d like to keep seeing what kind of racing I can get into.” • Though Bufoni has now lived exactly half her life in Los Angeles, she’s become an increasingly big star back in Brazil. Among other recent media attention, she’s on the June/July 2021 cover of GQ Brasil. • In Sept. 2019, Bufoni parted ways with Plan B Skateboards, two years after the company released her first signature deck.