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5-Minutes With Josh Sheehan

Written by Goba Wednesday, 24 August 2011 08:45

5-Minutes With Josh Sheehan

by gobadirt.com

It's been a massive year for West Oz freestyler Josh Sheehan, and it ain't done yet! He joined the Nitro Circus tour at the beginning of the year, then destroyed his opposition in the IFMXF Night Of The Jumps series in the last 6 events, he reached the podium at Red Bull X-Fighters in Italy and Spain, and more recently stomped his first Double Backflip under pressure against the best big trickers on the planet to claim a bronze medal in Moto X Best Trick, X Games 17 ... you'd have to agree it doesn't get too much bigger than that for a rider who was pretty much unknown before the 2011 season got underway. As we head into the final stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters series in Sydney Sheehan is fighting against time to ensur ehe is fully fit and ready to take the fight to the likes of series leader Nate Adams, Dany Torres and Robbie Maddison to name a few. Will he be ready to roll? Can he cause a major upset? We caught up with him at his home in West Oz to find out!

Hey Josh, how's the shoulder feeling after dislocating it at X Games executing one of your big Ruler Flips: It feels fine, I'm just strengthening it so its more comfortable when I stretch it right out. At the moment it hurts a little bit when I take it to the limit, but hopefully by Sydney it will be right to go. Right now I'm just doing some track work while my shoulder and ankle fully heal. Plus we've had huge amounts of rain here of late so I haven't been able to ride freestyle anyway. First time dislocated that shoulder. Ruler Flip.

There must be a lot of pressure on the shoulders doing that trick: Yeah right at the point where I'm looking through the bars I'm really forcing my shoulders, plus my flip levers are pushing my arms out as well so that's a lot of pressure on the joints for sure.

Sheeny popped his shoulder out at X Games busting out a Ruler Flip. Photo: J.Mitter/redbullxfighters.com

What's the go for Sydney, obviously you're going to be riding: I haven't been told for sure I'll be riding, but nothing has been released as yet. Once the weather clears I'll be able to knuckle down and practice in the weeks leading up to the event.

It will be awesome to ride the last round of the series on home soil yeah: Yeah I'm pretty excited about it. It's just frustrating I'm not 100 per cent right now so I can work on some new tricks. My goal right now is to make sure I get back to the level I was riding at before my shoulder injury at X Games because I'd like to be able to put up a good fight for Nate Adams and the other riders.

Do you think riding the home round will give you an advantage: Yeah I think I'll be able to feel more comfortable straight up because I'll be riding the same ramps I use at home. I'll also be excited about having family and friends and the a home country crowd behind me, but then again hopefully that doesn't put too much pressure on me. I'm pretty excited!

Sheeny's really got his tricksdown like this Lazyboy Flip. Photo: redbullxfighters.com

You've had an amazing year and we guess you've learned a lot from riding at the top level. What do you think it will take to beat a rider like Nate Adams: To start with it will definitely take an error-free run because Nate is on top of his game, he's super confident in his riding ability, is used to being at the top, and has been injury free for a long time. It would take an awesome run full of big tricks all done at 110 per cent, plus having the crowd behind you would help.

We hope you pull it all together in time mate as it would be great to see you come out on top for the Aussies in the first ever Red Bull X-Fighters event Down Under, good luck with it all: Yeah thanks a lot, I'll be giving it my best!