Kiwi Levi Sherwood grabs X-Games silver

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BIG AIR: New Zealand's Levi Sherwood performs during the finals of the the first stage of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Series in the Monumental Plaza de Torros Mexico.

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New Zealand teenager Levi Sherwood has won silver in the moto-x freestyle final of the summer X-Games 16 in Los Angeles today.

The field started with 16 riders and carved back to the top four pointscorers for three run final.

Sherwood, 18, the only Kiwi at the games, finished with 79 points from the best two scores of three rides, one point behind Travis Pastrana of the USA.

Pastrana had locked up the gold before his final run when Sherwood was unable to catch up with his third round.

In a meaningless session, Pastrana did a one-handed wallride then surprised just about everyone at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with a double backflip, the trick that made him a star.

"That was for the fans," a giddy Pastrana said after his opening night victory.

He had largely retired from freestyle and focused on rally car racing since landing his famous double flip in 2006, but returned this year after his "Nitro Circus" TV co-star Blake Williams called the 26-year-old Pastrana an "old man" and made a five-dollar bet on who would win at X Games.

Williams, the defending champion in Freestyle Moto X, had to drop out of the competition with a slowly healing broken collarbone this week, but Pastrana kept up his end.

A lack of practice and the lingering effects of his own broken collarbone left Pastrana anything but a favourite today (NZ time), but he managed a victory using just two of his three runs anyway.

"This wasn't the one I expected to win," Pastrana said.

Pastrana, who between dirt bikes and rally cars has won 10 gold medals at the X Games, still has three events left at the X Games.

He had been scheduled to compete in a record five events, but the lingering effects of his own broken collarbone left him without the upper-body strength to pull off the stunt he'd planned for Moto X Best Trick, and he has dropped out.

Scores:

Mat Rebeaud 32, 34, 13 (fall); Nate Adams (USA) 37, 34, 29; Sherwood 39, 40, 39; Pastrana 42, 38, 37.

- © Fairfax NZ News