In just one year, Cam Sinclair has gone from a coma to Moto X Best Trick

By Devon O'Neil

Cam Sinclair's Comeback
After nearly ending his career on a double backflip attempt, Cam Sinclair is ready to go for it again in X Games 16
 

The only place to start is where it nearly ended.

Madrid, Spain. July 18, 2009. Matched against Jeremy Stenberg in a Red Bull X-Fighters heat, Australian freestyle motocross pioneer Cam Sinclair under-rotated his borrowed bike on a climactic double backflip at the end of his run. The result was catastrophic.

No human face was built to hit the ground as hard as Sinclair's did. The force of a 250-pound dirtbike landing on top of him made it worse. His body went limp so fast it looked like someone turned off his power switch.

Brooke Abegg, a childhood friend whom Sinclair had asked to marry him six months prior, watched the crash from beside the jump. It remains "the scariest thing I've ever been through," she said. As Stenberg shouted, "Get up, Cam! Get up!" another Aussie, Robbie Maddison, held Abegg back.

Sinclair remained completely still, but they could hear a faint gurgle inside him. Not only had he severely damaged the left side of his brain, temporarily paralyzing his right side, but he'd lacerated his liver. He was bleeding to death.

Doctors at the arena induced a coma almost immediately. By the time Abegg saw him in the hospital that night, his body felt like an ice pack and tubes were everywhere. The next 48 hours were crucial.

Red Bull flew Sinclair's family from Melbourne to Madrid. For the first 10 hours, they didn't know whether Sinclair was dead or alive. Then they got a message from Abegg: He was off life support, breathing on his own.

Sinclair spent seven days in a coma, three weeks in a Madrid hospital and then a stint in an Australian hospital. His mind was erased like a chalkboard; he has no memory of being in Spain and still does not remember certain events from the past 10 years. As recently as two months ago, doctors told him his balance was just 50 percent of what it had been.

Yet on Friday in Los Angeles, Sinclair, 26, plans to attempt the same trick that nearly ended his life, this time with no hands on his bike during the dip between backflips. He will perform it at his long-awaited X Games debut, and if he sticks it, he could win the prize he's coveted since he ditched concrete construction to ride full time: a gold medal.

Kyle Loza has been the only rider to win Best Trick since 2007, using variations of the same trick each year -- from Volt to Electric Doom to Electric Death. Last year, amid talk of front flips and the rodeo 720 Pastrana calls the TP Roll, the hype far exceeded the show itself, as every rider struggled to land his trick.

Expect the front flips to be more refined this year, and with Pastrana having put off surgery to try the TP Roll again, Staples Center could play host to the greatest show in X Games history.

"It's going to be pretty hard to win Best Trick without doing a trick where you have a good chance at killing yourself," said Aussie Blake Williams, the defending freestyle gold medalist and Sinclair's best friend.

Sinclair with fiancee Brooke Abegg.

Such a prospect is precisely what makes Abegg and Sinclair's family dread this competition. Abegg still hasn't watched any of Sinclair's double flips since the crash, closing her eyes every time he tries one. She knows he's not at full strength -- he still drags his right leg sometimes when he walks, and his right hand is slow to grab the handlebars after he takes it off, a factor that could play into his no-handed double attempt at X.

Sinclair won't be the favorite, but suffice it to say he'll have as fair a shot as anyone -- not to mention an entire sport pulling for him.

"He's an inspiration on and off the bike," said Pastrana, a six-time freestyle gold medalist. "The more you get to know him, the more you respect him."

Said Sinclair: "I don't care if I win gold. I'll be happy with anything, as long as I come home safe. Just to be there is incredible as it is."