PAUL BASAGOITIA: AFTER THE RAMPAGE

“I was the kid that turned up to Crankworx without a sponsor on a borrowed bike and won, all that’s disappeared and now I’m known for one big mistake in my life; it’s crazy and it sucks”

How did it feel watching yourself in Any one of Us, your own documentary about the Rampage crash in 2015?

To be honest it was embarrassing. I get awkward when I see that stuff but it’s important to me to showcase what goes into a spinal cord injury. I could have pulled all those scenes out but it would have been a lie, it would have been a fake documentary and I didn’t want to do that.

We’ve all seen the footage of your crash, but can you tell us that day from your perspective?

Out of all the Rampages I’d competed in, it was the one I felt most confident about, and the best chance I had to win. I was like, “man, this is the year.” I’d won all the big slopestyle events but Rampage was the one where I’d never stood on the podium. And then afterwards I was going to hang it up.

Dropping in, one of the things I was most stressed about was backflipping the canyon at the top, it was the biggest act I’ve ever done, over a canyon, and it was the first thing I had to do on my run. And it ran perfect, the biggest hurdle in my whole line and I just did it. I remember I talked to myself, saying, “this is going exactly how I want it.”

Then the big step down, I hadn’t had the chance to really ride it, but I was like, it’s fine, I’ve done drops like this and bigger. Then I overshot and got off course by maybe two feet. I was in the brush, trying to get back on course and my pedal caught a branch, flipped me over the handlebars and I landed straight on my back.

Did you know something was wrong right away?