For one, that this post is filed under sports eliminates the famous naked chef and all the actors. The Jamie I'm talking about is a man who takes his sport to the extreme. Perhaps Jamie Carter, the British Paralympian? That's earmarked for a future post, when I get the chance to meet the inspiring young 20-year old.
No, the Jamie I am writing about is a 43-year old extreme sports Englishman. This Jamie is an amazing story of endurance, perseverance and tenacity that recently earned this Jamie from Nottingham the most prestigious international sporting accolade of all - the 2014 Laureus Actions Sportsperson of the Year. And about time too!
Swapping his usual Monster-clad t-shirts and cap for a crisp and handsome black tux for the award ceremony - which is for sake of a comparison is like the Oscars or Grammy Awards of Sports - this Brit shared the evening with the sporting world's most elite. This included retired US sprinter and 400m World and Olympic record holder, Michael Johnson; four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel; youngest ever MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez; former Dutch football internationals Johan Cruyff and Ruud Gullit; and the most well-known skateboarder in the world, Tony 'The Birdman' Hawk.
The other JB.. not Jenson Button..
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| Jamie Bestwick is 2014 Laureus Action Sportsperson of the year and rightly so! |
For those of you familiar with the X-Games, Jamie Bestwick is a household name amongst the extreme sports community. His unparalleled exploits with his beloved BMX bike and the multi-time champion in the X-Games and Dew Tours ensures Bestwick ranks way up there with the legends like extreme sports forefather Shaun Palmer, the godfather of skateboards Tony Hawk, snow/skateboarder Shaun White and Brazilian skateboarder Bob Burnquist.
Nominated four times at the Laureus, 2014 was finally Jamie's year. . and rightly so. Jamie's story is one that hits a chord in me and not for the obvious reasons. Obviously, I am not a BMX aficionado nor do I compete in the X-Games or Dew Tours. Most definitely not likely either. It's more obscure than that.
But I'd always had this crush on extreme sports. From inline skating and inline hockey and now snowboarding. The latter was something I came to know off during the later stages of my period in exile in the UK. I had to try it. Though there was virtually no snow for a few hundred miles in any direction from London, a few enterprising souls built a dry-slope centre. I tried it and after inelegantly falling several hundred times, I gave up and sold the board I inherited from a mate.
How old is your heart?
Though snowboarding is now back in my life, I have also grown very much aware of how very good the snowboarders I encounter on the Alps or on Mount Yōtei are. And to rub salt to the wound, how very young they are. *sigh*..
For instance, I recently befriended a group of incredibly awesome young Brits up in Niseko, Hokkaidō. Although the age difference is as big as Albus Dumbledore is to Harry Potter, the only age that really truly matters is the age of your heart.
Meeting Jamie Bestwick reinforced that fact to me. Back to why Jamie Bestwick is 'da bomb and totally deserved the Laureus. Well for starters, like Tony Hawk, Jamie is already in his fourties. At 43 years old, Jamie is still the best BMX rider in the world.
Unlike Shaun White, Tucker Hibbert (Sno Cross) and Tony Hawk who are all six time X-Games champs - a feat known in the games as a six-peat; Jamie Bestwick is the only athlete to have done it eight times - or eight-peat. This feat he achieved after winning his 8th consecutive BMX Vert gold at the 2013 X-Games.
Armed with a jaw-dropping and impressive artillery of tricks that includes his trademark airs, 540 variations, seat grabs, front flips, downside tail whips etcetera, what struck me the most is his mind. Like Tony Hawk he gets asked a lot about his age and that he's still being competitive. Jamie's response, "sometimes old dogs can learn new tricks."
Damned straight!!!
Aside from his mad crazy tricks and that he is still pulling out all the stops in competition, what really awes me most is the trigger that changed Jamie's world. Essentially, one day Jamie woke up and decided that he had had enough of his 9 to 5 regular job with an airline company. His love for BMX was enough and he gave up a grounded and mature way of life to pursue his passion.
Granted, that I'm not even within a 0.01% percentile that equates to an iota of any considerable talent and the fact I woke up two decades too late, I can still somehow relate to that decision in a weird, bizarre and twisted kind of way.
People like Jamie or the young lads I was acquainted with in Japan recently, inspire me. This is particularly true especially in taking dramatic decisions in one's life.
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| The Laureus awardis the Oscars of the sporting world. |
There is an element of fear, for sure, especially when one is either forced or willingly faced with the decision to continue embarking on a road well travelled or to take a totally different route.
Chatting to the press, Jamie willingly embraces fear. Extreme sports is all about conquering fear, as he puts it, "it's living with fear, it's knowing fear is your friend, because fear is a great teacher.." and in Jamie's case, "it's knowing when you've taken it too far."
Chatting to the press, Jamie willingly embraces fear. Extreme sports is all about conquering fear, as he puts it, "it's living with fear, it's knowing fear is your friend, because fear is a great teacher.." and in Jamie's case, "it's knowing when you've taken it too far."
In my case, the fear of the unknown was always lurking around the corners of my consciousness. When I broke the top of my humerus bone falling very inelegantly off my inline skates, rendering my right arm out of service for 6 weeks, I remember recognising a moment of fear in that split second before and realising I had taken it too far.
It was also present the first time I strapped myself in onto a snowboard after such a long hiatus. And when I tumbled down the run and busted my right knee and bruised a rib, I learned of my own physical limits.
Humility
Fear was also part and parcel of a life-changing decision I made in 2013. Talking to Jamie, I realised that if you don't acknowledge fear, you can't overcome it. So true and I am glad I did. The other thing fear teaches you is humility. I can't help but wonder, if you never step away from that comfort zone to face fear head on, you'll never also fail, and you'd never learn humility.
Undoubtedly, there are plenty of stories worth noting, about courage, perseverance in the face of obvious adversity and a plethora of other noteworthy beating the odds clichés. For instance, the story of the 55-year old Mexican man who defied conventional wisdom to compete in the alpine ski event at the recently concluded Sochi Winter Olympics, his 6th Olympic games!
Of all these, for some strange reason Jamie's story has a profound effect on me. The humblest multiple X-Game champion I've met. The 43-year old had a mischievous gleam in his eye as he winked at me when I fielded my final question before he left us mere mortals to rejoin the crème de la crème of the world's sporting elite.
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| Me, starstruck. |
He had that look in his eye that left me with the feeling that, you don't have to be a champion or the best to be a winner, no matter how old you are. He winked again and walked away.
So down-to-earth, yet powerfully determined and enigmatic, Jamie Bestwick is definitely the best in my books.
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