Pretoria - We certainly hope that the groundskeepers at the capital city’s Union Buildings are fans of extreme sports, because what were once pristine manicured lawns are now covered with hundreds of truckloads of dirt in preparation for the fourth round of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour.
On Saturday, twelve of the best freestyle motocross riders in the world will perform in front of a sellout South African crowd (and a giant statue of Nelson Mandela) at the national heritage site in Pretoria. Sir Herbert Baker’s now 102-year-old buildings will play backdrops to the back-flipping superstars for the second time, after the Meintjieskop venue first hosted the X-Fighters Tour last year.
This year’s South African round is the fourth stop on the five event calendar, and with three down Australia’s Clinton Moore and his incredible bag of dirtbike tricks (including one specialty called “The Doom”) leads the points tables. Frenchman Tom Pagès, who won in South Africa last year, is hot on the heels of Moore in second place and will need to perfectly execute tricks like “The Volt” and “The Flair” to move up the standings.
Former Red Bull X-Fighters World Champion Levi Sherwood has been forced to pull out of this weekend’s event due to an ankle injury, and he will be replaced by Alistair Sayer from Botswana, who finished in 10th place in the Pretoria round last year.
- Gates to the park will open at 11.30am and the competition will start at 1.30pm.
- Visit www.redbullxfighters.com for more information and to view the X-Fighter “Tricktionary” video.
- Tickets start from R295 and are available at Computicket .
- The entire competition will be streamed live on the redbullxfighters.com website and on this website.
- Real-time results will also be posted on redbullxfighters.com/results
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