From Port Kembla electrician to Australia's very own Evel Knievel,Robbie Maddison is quickly making his mark in freestyle motocross,
Winsor Dobbin writes.
IT WAS a good steady job, working as an electrician at the Port Kembla steelworks.
But Robbie Maddison wanted more. As he plied his trade, his mind wandered back to
when he was bumping bars with Chad Reed and Anthony Gobert in junior motocross
events. In his head he was doing aerial stunts on his motorbike, performing death-
defying jumps. He was Evel Knievel.
"Being an electrician was driving me insane," he says. So he quit.
Three years on, Maddison is one of the top five freestyle motocross (FMX) riders
in the world. He has a house in Southern California, stars regularly on US network
television and is treated like a movie star wherever he goes.
Except in Australia, where he's just one of the boys when he gets together with
his mates from Kiama or returns to his house at Oak Flats.
Extreme sports are big business. Events like FMX and skateboarding have built
huge fan bases without permeating the consciousness of fans of mainstream sports.
The X-Games in Los Angeles, the Red Bull X-Fighters series and the Dew Action
Sports Tour are box-office smashes - and Maddison, 25, is right in the thick of it.
If it's Sunday, it must be Moscow, or Dublin, or Mexico City, or Madrid. But it hasn't
been an easy road for Maddison, who might just be the toughest (and maddest)
sportsman Australia has produced for some time.
He's broken his neck, had three seizures, punctured both lungs, broken his
collarbone four times and snapped his wrist four times in his quest to be the
best freestyle motocross rider in the world... click on ozzy go to the full story
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