Something changed last week.
Emil Johansson was a hair away from disaster. And then Adolf Silva went for it…
In case the above embed code from Adolf Silva and Road2Recovery’s Instagram post doesn’t work, the post contains some not hugely surprising news; Silva has no sensation from the chest down.
In the past I have not been one of the hand-wringers as regards Red Bull Rampage. My arguments were kind of along the lines that these riders would be doing daft, dangerous stuff even without Rampage.
Latest Singletrack Merch
Buying and wearing our sustainable merch is another great way to support Singletrack
But during the men’s event last weekend something changed. I think, like a lot of televised infamy, it was partly due to the instantly-iconic actual camera angle/footage of the horror crash and the instant, total silence that descended on the desert.
And let’s not forget the whole sketchy, panicky, desperation of Silva’s run immediately before the crash. He’d clearly already made up his mind to attempt the double backflip before he set-off from the start platform. This was Rampage; you gotta do something ‘special’ to claim the top spot.
And then, here’s the thing that did it for me, the announcers finally piped up with some hushed words, the event was put ‘on hold’ and they threw to some commercials. Commercials for Red Bull events, shows and stunts. All of which shared the common promotional vibe of risk and/or likelihood of something going wrong.
This doesn’t feel the same as Evel Knievel. The Knievel was the principal risk-taker. He was also the principal benefactor. Rampage didn’t feel like that this year. This year felt like Ancient Rome and the Colosseum. With Emperor Taurine sat on high calling for the next competitor to head into the gladiatorial pit.
Let’s be honest, it doesn’t even feel like Rampage and it hasn’t for a number of years now. As soon as the sandbags arrived, it was no longer true to the spirit of Rampage. It became an event that wasn’t even primarily aimed at mountain bikers anymore. It was now just another viral clip that can also be built into a sizzle reel for Red Bull.
It’s over for me with Red Bull Rampage. I certainly haven’t felt like running the usual post-event result stories and highlight vids on singletrackworld.com this week.
Surely, it’s now over for Rampage. Certainly in its current twisted form at least.
All of us here at Singletrack Magazine hope Adolf Silva’s condition improves. Good luck Adolf.
Road2Recovery Adolf Silva Fundraiser
“Adolf faces an intense and expensive road: daily therapy, adaptive equipment, home adjustments, and ongoing medical support. All funds raised will go toward Adolf’s ongoing medical care, rehabilitation, and transport to Barcelona, as well as adaptive home and vehicle modifications and specialized mobility equipment essential for his long-term independence and quality of life. Your help makes a direct difference in his recovery and stability — giving him every chance to rebuild his life.“
Ah, so when he’s in a position to do it, I’d imagine he’ll be cancelling the Go Fund Me on the go for him? Because he’s got it all in hand and it would be utter madness to think part of his contingency was to be an ad hoc charity case. Or something…..
Â
That’s not actually up for debate I don’t think. Clearly they do. It’s the exploitation of people wired that way for the crumbs off the table of the corporate machine that I object to. All the risk for the the “young, dumb and full of cum" and the vast vast majority of the reward for the fizzy drinks maker.
I’d think the funding is more for things that the insurance doesn’t cover, like maybe home modifications, inital feels for XYZ in hospital, i don’t honestly think it’ll be for EVERYTHING. But insurance can’t in these cases cover every eventuality, so i’d have thought the funding is to cover things that the insurance doesn’t.
Â
Â
But apparently they are not bloody stupid. Home modification is not a nice to have. It’s an absolute essential…..so surely already part of their carefully thought out ‘contingency’. Because they are not bloody stupid.
Â
I don’t believe it for a minute of course – I’m just being facetious. I don’t believe the ‘plan’ was a lot deeper than ‘Send it!!!!’ and ‘healing vibes’.Â
Â
I’m not sure you actually want a discussion here or a possibility something that could change your mind on anything, so i’m not exactly sure what to say here.
Â
Yeah, sorry, you are right – I don’t really.
Â
I guess I just get frustrated when the posts drift away from both the main thrust of Benji’s article and (imo) the bigger picture. In the big scheme of things it doesn’t really matter what insurance is in place and who is paying for it and if it’s insurable at all bla bla bla. That’s all just flim flam. Insurance and bucket loads of cash don’t get parallelised people walking again – it just makes people slightly more comfortable in their new life. He could be taken to RB HQ in Austria and stroked with ostrich feathers by podium girls 24/7 (not that he’d benefit from that a lot at the moment mind) and it still wouldn’t bring him back the life he had before he was razzed up and launched himself in front of millions. A ‘don’t worry – it’s all insured’ attitude is not much better than more ‘healing vibes’.
Â
No, the real issue here is ethical debate about exploiting (or not – YMMV) athletes for what is in all reasonable ways, a marketing campaign. Generated and conceived not in any altruistic way to give these athletes an outlet, but because (when you have complete ownership of the entire event and everything around it) it generates you marketing gold. Let’s remember this is not a company that has been reporting these life changing accidents in their output – they are not reporting at all – just generating yet more positive promotional content, even as this has been going on. And then – the further nuance – is it exploitative even if the young people in question don’t think/appreciate they are being exploited.Â
The real problem I have with rampage is the fact that in other sports when folks get seriously injured or die they take steps to mitigate the chances of it happening again.
I might be wrong but I’ve not seen or heard of any steps Redbull have taken at Rampage with regards to this?
Did anything change after Paulbas? Will anything change now? I very much doubt it.
I for one have no desire to watch folks getting hurt on a live feed.
Â
The closest parallel I can think of to Rampage, is something like the Isle of Man TT motorcycle races, which are, in objective terms, an order of seriousness more dangerous than any racing on purpose-built race tracks, think triple figure speeds and red mist on small country roads lined with dry-stone walls. Many of the same arguments apply.
Almost by definition, competitors in these events don’t really, in their gut, believe that the worst will happen to them, even if they rationally acknowledge the theoretical possibility – it’s like riding motorcycles generally, you know it’s dangerous, but you don’t think it can every really happen to you, until it does. ‘Informed consent’ in that light is of limited value.
Which leaves you in the uncomfortable situation where you either believe that events like these should be banned both for the competitors’ own protection and, more generally, to reduce publicity for dangerous risk taking, or you take the view that it’s up to the individual whether they choose to accept those risks, free will and all that.
It’s also not dissimilar to the predicament of brand-sponsored climbers and mountaineers, who are under a sort of unspoken pressure to do harder and harder, more noteworthy climbs in order to maximise their value to their sponsors. Brands aren’t strictly speaking, forcing them to do hard, dangerous routes, but in a way, it goes with the territory.Â
Personally I’ve never been interested in Rampage. It seems massively contrived and the idea of people risking their health so a huge corporation can flog vast quantities of some sickly, ultra-processed, stimulant-stuffed ‘energy’ drink to gullible teenagers is just wrong. I’m not sure much has changed with it beyond details though, if I were the author, I’d be asking some questions about why suddenly ‘you’re not entertained’ when things are pretty much as they always have been with Rampage bar relatively minor details.Â
Fwiw, I stopped going to the TT when the fundamentally depressing number of people being hurt and killed – racers and spectators – overshadowed any enjoyment I got from watching what’s otherwise a fantastic event/spectacle in a unique setting.Â
I think the other thing to look at are the stats – the amount of athletes who have competed at Rampage is tiny, compared to even DH WC, of those atheletes we can see percentage wise the risks are very very high. Red Bull like any huge corporation will only help when dragged kicking & screaming when public opinion looks to hit them in the financials.That said Red Bull founded Wings for Life & cover all administrative costs so all donations go to spinal cord research. As ever it’s not entirely black & white.
i guess, a question to be asked…
If this wasn’t a broadcast event, would these guys still be doing these runs and tricks?
I think the answer would be no for a complete run, individual tricks? possibly? Silva’s crash feature? i don’t know, i don’t know.. i mean he obviously thought he would pull it off, I assume he has double back flipped stuff before…
A lot of us ride to a point where it is challenging, however i would say the risks are much less generally. How does something like this feel to a rider who is going to attempt it? is it a similar perceived risk as a small drop to an average rider?Â
regardless. probably no for people doing 60? foot double back flips in the desert just for kicks…that should probably be the benchmark, if you wouldnt do it willingly in private, don’t make it viable in the event.. somehow…
Enabled might be better?
Personally I wouldn’t leap to cancelling the whole thing immediately.
I was really impressed with the skill and risk management shown by the riders as a whole, but I think there are questions around what liability RB might have for creating an event where an over-enthusiastic participant is able to push it too far?
Should they have stepped in and said “no" to Silva’s double flip, as apparently he was blocked from trying a similar stunt some years before?
Not victim blaming and I certainly think they should be funding his treatment if required, but if it’s gong to continue maybe it needs more procedural guardrails? (not physical ones as I think I saw someone suggest on PB)
Feel like they get lucky each year but the consequences get closer each time. The riders are happy to send it but where is the line drawn between them being enabled and then being reckless? Is the pressure of one event a year too much and riders push more than they should? As above maybe the line would be amazing anyway without the double backflip which was always a coin toss as to land or crash.
Â
But then sports like motorbike racing still exist. Racers die. Organisers make it as safe as they can bit they do have stewards etc that keep it within some limits. Â
Â
Luckily rampage type stuff is so niche that it doesnt really apply to most riders.
I guess the comparison could be F1 – which was arguably more dangerous back in the day than Rampage with drivers having equal levels of bravery to modern Rampage riders.Â
But it would be an F1 where the event was invented by Red bull, the broadcasting and image rigts monopolised by Redbull, a good chunk of the drivers sponsored by Redbull. Redbull supplying the prizes and Redbull ‘influencing’ who won to rules designed by Redbull. No FIA. No F1 drivers association. Would you imagine the safety improvements that happened (at glacial speeds) happening at all in a Redbull monopoly F1 world?Â
I guess the issue is that safety measures in F1 didn’t really impact the visual spectacle. Rampage is in reality a curated series of displays of skill and death defying (maybe a phrase a bit too close to the knuckle) feats dressed up as a competition.Â
F1 does have a location etc they try and make as safe as possible, the ‘racing" is the main spectacle. I do not watch the Rampage in detail so forgive me if I am wrong, but the riders have a mountain to use in away they see fit and create more risk and dig and fettle to provide thisÂ
So yes F1 etc etc s dangerous in a slightly different way.in my view. A bit more controlled risk maybe with the safety equipment etc.
 Sport in general seems to be trying to get more risk to promote viewers and entertainment. Look at XC, (who saw that terrible face plant by Lecante i tjhink it was) .
Road riders racing to a downhill finish etc etc.
A whole new topic really for lots of sports.
Â
Â
Â
Â
If you’re going to go that way, the question is really, how does the context – ie: riding in a heavily-promoted commercial event with, presumably, a lucrative pay-out for being there – affect risk judgement. It’s obviously going to depend on the individual, but it’s easy to imagine that some, very driven individuals could make bad decisions under that pressure.
My experience with elite climbers is that far from being risk takers, what really marks them out is that they have a really accurate understanding of their own ability and where their limits are. I suspect the same is true of, say, elite downhill racers or road riders. They’re not infallible, but they have the self-knowledge and specialist intelligence to operate very close to their limit, without going off a metaphorical edge. If the event itself impacts on that process, you could argue that it’s inherently more dangerous than doing the same thing outside of it.Â
Josh Bender is one of the judges at Rampage, he was throwing himself off massive cliff drops years ago well before social media had become a thing and when bikes weren’t anywhere near as capable as they are now. He always displayed a very lax attitude to personal safety and the scoring in Rampage these days does seem to reward risk taking over creative lines
This sums it up well. It’s great until it’s not. Ive been shot down for many years making comments that it’s no more than a pr stunt for RB with the riders taking all the risk. Im my view Hardline is no different, although the level of risk for the riders is arguably lower.
Â
I dont think the comparison with F1 is fair. F1 have consultant level doctors on site with an on-site medical centre and cars / driver protection mandated. Rampage has none of thisÂ
You’re shot down not because of that, but because that’s like saying Premier League football is a PR stunt for XYZ, well of course it is…. What else would it be ? All ‘events’ are little more than a glorified advertising hoarding for someone or another, whether it’s Downhill, Motorbikes, NLF, NBA, that’s what they’re all there for, to make money for ‘someone’Â
I don’t see how you see it as different.
I’d be curious as to how you view say Crankworx ? That’s the same as Hardline/Rampage basically then isn’t it ?Â
Â
I think this is where I stand.
If you thought it was stupid/should be banned prior to last Sunday. Then yes, sadly Silva’s crash has validated that opinion. It is dangerous and looking at it objectively the consequenses do seem to outweigh any potential benefits for the athletes.
However if you thought it was a jolly good jape for the last 25 years or whenever you first became aware of it, and now suddenly have a repulsion or knee jerk reaction and clamour for its end…Â
The risks and consequenses have always been very obviously apparent. Even without knowing about Paul Bas (10 years ago now!) the chance of career ending, life changing or even life ending accidents were evident to anyone that had watched any single run or clip.Â
And I know nobody asked, but here’s how I’d improve it.
– one run each. the two run format encourages extra risk as there is a do-over option. if you knew there was only one chance to get it right you might be more conservative doing only stuff you had nailed in practise. plus riders then get pressured into trying to improve in run 2 having seen the run one scores.Â
– prize structure. appearance fee for everyone who shows up (i think already exists), completion prize for everyone completing a run (again encourages slightly more conservative riding from those who might realistically not have a chance of winning), then podium prizes.
– judging. especially if doing the one run format, keep the scores secret from riders yet to drop. They’ve spent a week building and practising what they think they can do – then giving someone 5 minutes to decide they need to add in a new trick to get a few points improvement. I’m not sure quite how to do this while still having the scores available to the tv feed.
I’m sure there are some, but I’m struggling to think of an event where a single commercial organisation is in charge of every aspect. No sport governing body, no sponsors to answer to, no athletes agent, no athletes union, no broadcaster. You are all those things.Â