Gee Atherton Air-Lifted from the Red Bull Rampage Course After Crash in Practice [Updated with Injury Report]
Gee in 2022. Photo: Jack Tennyson / Atherton Bikes
Gee Atherton has been air-lifted from the 2023 Red Bull Rampage course by helicopter after a crash on the first attempt of his massive mid-mountain drop. Gee is conscious and we hope that the unconfirmed reports of him being able to move his toes on the stretcher are a positive sign.
The 60+ feet vertical drop is especially difficult because there's very little distance out.
Gee was quickly evacuated off the mountain and is now in hospital care.
Gee's drop has been highlighted by competitors as especially difficult and terrifying. It was quite windy when he sent it this morning, most other riders weren't planning on riding at the time. He hit the drop with a lot of speed, drifting a bit back seat and to the right in the air, and landing deep before crashing.
We are gutted for Gee, who has been fighting to recover from a crash in 2021 that left him with multitude broken bones and other injuries. Healing vibes to Gee, and we'll update this as we get more information.
Update 4pm: Gee's posted his crash on Instagram with the caption "Heavy day at RedBull Rampage, this one was always going to be a beast. #lightweightbaby. Injury update to follow."
500 [Failed to load instagram embed] https://www.instagram.com/p/CyO9tz1LRgr/?maxwidth=1000&hidecaption=1
Update 10/11 According to Gee, his injuries aren't too bad, but for most humans "some fractures to vertebrae and a few skull fractures" would count as quite serious.
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Hoping for a good and speedy recovery for Gee, we know he'll put in the work to be right back where he was.
Healing vines!
I find it a bit selfish to ask or demand of others, our own wishes for them.
And "obvious imminent danger". Better call the whole competition off.
I was clearly not talking about talking your dumbf*ck friend out of jumping off a cliff. I am talking about trying to impose your values when it comes to risk, upon someone else. Gee is clearly capable of riding at this level, fully understands the risks, yet he personally finds the risk worth it. So it is no ones place but his to make that decision. I am for whatever makes you happy. truly. even if it kills you.
(parachute and landing gear sold separately)
Sorry to get all philosophical. I love to think about these sorts of things and Rampage stirs it up every year. I'm inclined to believe similar to you, "These guys know the risk, they know their skillset, they have their passion. They can choose." The one caveat is that there are many cases of action sports athletes who become addicted to the adrenaline and dopamine and/or hit their heads a few too many times and they may not actually be in a position to make a rational decision. Still none of our business but I would think it's completely appropriate for friends and family to have those conversations. I would expect most of these guys, especially those who are husbands and fathers, have had some serious conversations with their loved ones. I think it's completely appropriate for a wife, for example, to ask how important Rampage is vs. being alive for their child, being able to walk, living a long, full life, etc.
-Hunter S Thompson
clearly he does not. He overestimates the latter which sometimes lead to spectacular rides and sometimes to real heavy injuries.
furthermore, length is NOT the sole metric in determining value of ones life.
that is not in indictment of his skills. it is a testement to his resolve and guts.
"It was quite windy when he sent it this morning, most other riders weren't planning on riding at the time." - That tells a lot about his mental game. And not in a good way. If seasoned Rampage/slopestyle pros choose to not ride, you don't ride. SMH
what a maniac
www.instagram.com/p/CyRcun_x1aJ
gaggahaahhaahah
When that happens, Red Bull will pull sponsorship, freeriders and industry folks will say stuff on record like "at least he died doing what he loved" and some dumb foundation will be created to "commemorate" (more like monetize) the meaningless death of an athlete pushing waaaaay too far.
This line was dumb, the level of risk at Rampage at this point is dumb, and Gee is lucky not to be dead. So-I'm glad Gee isn't dead. But it's time to cancel Rampage.
I hope it never happens, because after pushing the limit to much you may find it
Cycling (all disciplines) is dangerous, but death in competition is pretty rare. I suspect “the optics” would kill the sponsorship money that keeps Rampage running.
Never say never, look at how they removed Moto's from the PPIHC.
Wishing you all the best Gee man!
Luckily for us the people at that level have a lifetime worth of skills and trust in their equipment, and we rarely hear of top-level riders dying (aside from Road Cycling, which has had quite a few premature deaths at World Tour races in recent years).
Gee is a Red Bull athlete.
I've spent 20 years working in the medical insurance industry. Red Bull have never come to me and asked for a quote to insure their athletes.
www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2019/mount-sinais-department-of-rehabilitation-and-human-performance-becomes-the-official-east-coast-medical-services-provider-for-red-bull-athletes
www.espn.com/action/story/_/id/6969878/red-bull-links-disc-sports-spine-center-athlete-medical-care
www.discmdgroup.com/sports-affiliations-red-bull-sports-medicine
Plus the helmet gets you access to the Athlete Perfomance Centre in Austria
When your business is extreme sports unfortunately stuff like that is going to happen.
Everything about the event hypes up the riders, raises expectations, and encouraging risk, but there's no opportunity for mitigation when the wind's gusting around and the time is ticking away. The setup pushes athletes to take on more risks than they might have otherwise bargained for, and with the catastrophic consequences at play, especially for the DH focus riders, something needs to change.
Hardline has a fixed finish so if the weather is crap they just bring the start down the hill into the trees. Rampage doesn't allow for that flexibility.
Hardline is a super gnarly race, so ultimately it's about impartial objective lap-times. Rampage is a scored event with a bias (particularly over the last 10 years) to the slopestyle tricks over the DH/ Freeride creative lines.
I know they're different events, but surely there's lessons that can be learned from each other.
Redbull Art of Motion (a parkour competition) did a format where they essentially did an on site video competition. Maybe some inspiration from that? With wind almost always being a topic, I think formats that give riders a lot more freedom on when they drop in would potentially help a lot.
These guys (and gals someday) are not riding for you, they are riding for themselves, they self select and choose to ride this stuff.
Seriously, don't you get the deal: The riders are building the features they ride, it's not rocket science to see them ride their own creations.
roadbikeaction.com/cyclist-dies-from-crash-near-vuelta-finish/#:~:text=A%2029%2Dyear%2Dold%20Spanish,Vuelta%20a%20Espana%20on%20Saturday.
But yes... remarkable amount of work they put in. Incredible really. But just because they're doing it quickly doesn't mean that everything isn't very well thought out, planned and executed.
Thats every Rampage since day 1. Thats also why you watch.
Maybe its time for those having a hard time watching to tune out of Rampage. Lawn bowling is a relaxing sport.
I agree, but not for the reasons you stated. Its become a overglorified slopestyle competition, with some bullshit along the way, like no women riders and newbloods like Dylan Stark not getting an invite.
Sad thing is, even if Gee rode the drop in the finals, he wouldn't win compared to people like Semenuk that win solely by throwing a big trick off a medium size feature.
@KickFlipABike: With this type of drops riders like Gee are making Rampage less like slopestyle and more like the old days.
Someone will die, that'll end the event. It shouldn't have to come to that.
Marquis events like Rampage lead to greater risk taking than athletes would otherwise engage in. It shouldn't take a death to deal with that.
And 2 massive injuries in something like 5 years-maybe Gee is making some less than great decisions, and needs more than vapid "support" from people who won't wipe his bottom if he ends up paralyzed.
>With this type of drops riders like Gee are making Rampage less like slopestyle and more like the old days.
Except when he gets robbed by judges. Do you seriously not remember the last couple of years?
Maybe switch venues each year and use less prepared terrain (Farwell Canyon, Moab slabs, Central American coffee plantations, etc) and riders have to create style with what nature gives them.
True, a shorter vertical feature might mean less time to fit in tricks but athletes will find a way to step out from the crowd and draw attention. Gee's first Rampage fame came from a crazy wall-ride.
From the outside world It simply cannot be understood, but it's plain to see, competitors at these events are not sportsmen & women. They are gladiators.
As far as Gee goes -- the body can only take so much abuse, I hope he retires and finds something else fulfilling to do on the bike besides send these outrageous drops.
As for all the Red Bull "responsibility" talk...a dude wanted to take a BALOON into SPACE, and then FALL TO EARTH. Red Bull said "we'll hold your beer and here's a pile of money". So which is it...participant choice or irresponsible sponsor? As I said, I think that's a lunch meeting between Felix and RB, not any of us. RB continues to see benefit in propping up Rampage, and the riders continue to see benefit in participating. The thing we all control is whether we watch it or not and to see if that affects rider or RB opinion. I don't see a solid argument against the "choice" of either party, which leaves us out of the process.
I think Dyfi is a good name for the bike part and Atherton bikes for the bike brand.
The issue comes that folk like Gee dont have the same fear as the rest of us and are incredibly driven to drive for their next fix. Once in the groove its pretty hard for anyone to convince them that what they are doing may have severe consequences.
Lets hope Gee is fine and makes a full recovery from this crash, it looked brutal.
But then again, they can organize and keep spectators moderately safe, or there will be deaths of people running on their own.
I really wanna know the death toll of older lines since the events happened and people went to ride there.
but yeah, sweet tattoo
What's funny is bro's are like, "no women, it's too dangerous, but for the men we'll let them decide, they know their limits and you can't tell them what to do".
Maybe the logistics of this don't work, but if rider teams can have a few days to build lines then over several days people can run their lines and try out other rider's lines the amount of content would be more than enough of a return. There can be prizing for "Best Line" in terms of the build crew and the rider, with the votes being from the people involved instead of an external judging panel. Make it more of a freeride summit instead of a high-pressure live event.
He is undeniably a beast and a huge inspiration and I was really looking forward to seeing him in Rampage again.
I'm a decade his senior and what I can say in hindsight is that as you get older your reflexes DO just get slower with time.
For myself I'm sending bigger stuff and riding faster now that is did in my 20's and 30's but that is largely due to improvements in bikes / gear.
At a certain point you're relying more on accumulated bike experience and muscle memory which is fine until you hit that fine line of catastrophe and payoff. When the margins of success are slim I feel like you need to have those cat like reflexes of a younger person.
I hope that Gee didn't feel added pressure to "one up" the young bucks for the sake of relevance and to strengthen the Atherton brand. It seemed like a very ambitious drop.
Massive healing vibes and I hope that he recovers from this one 100%. It really sucks to see that he got seriously injured.
And as it stands, everyone on Rampage is riding DH rigs, with 200mm of travel thats nowhere near enough. Bender back in the day was riding 250R/300F bike, and features were smaller.
In regards to Biking VS Racing, I do both, and I can tell you that biking has more risk BUT THAT RISK IS AT THE CHOICE OF THE RIDER. Racing has spent years negating chance, and adding a lot to safety. I've hit walls at 140kph and not even had a mark or bruise on my body, where as with biking I've broken 2 arms and a collar bone. It's not really a fair comparison, and is well wide of the mark.
wut
MotoGP tracks are lined with big airbags to reduce the risk of riders smashing into crash barriers at crazy high speeds, and the riders wear full leather race suits with armour built in. Alpine ski race courses have catch netting to stop a racer flying into the trees at 60mph.
Has anyone stopped watching these sports because of 'nanny' safety measures meaning there's less chance of seeing someone die on a given weekend?
On a slightly different track, I wonder if at some point the sponsors step in at all? Gee rides Fox suspension, have they ever tested it to take that sort of impact and therefore pressure? Imagine the negative news they would have if the top cap blew out the air spring on his fork causing Gee to have a very bad crash.... Is there a scenario where they say "we don't want you to attempt that with our product until we've tested it in the lab to make sure it will hold up"?
But I would also like to very clearly reiterate at this point that I think banning Red Bull Cliff Lemmings is not the solution. People are allowed to put themselves in danger if they like as long as they dont hurt others in the process.
Last year at the EWS at Burke, VT we were chatting to the guy running the pit for a brand that has it’s own tires, and the team’s bikes were lined up shiney and ready to go, shod with Maxxis tires. “Those will be getting Sharpied before the race” was what we were told!
As an aside, its worth noting that there were essentially 0 bike failures this year. It would seem that the bikes are more than up to the task. The danger doesn't really come from the equipment not holding up, it comes from the rider missing their line.
www.instagram.com/reel/CyO9tz1LRgr
Overshot it, no chance of holding onto that.
I really hope his injuries are not too bad.
Quick recovery Gee!
Get/measure all the geo data of takeoff and landing and terrain.
Calculate the excact speed you need. Verify this calculation with smaller drops.
Maybe this way you can reduce the risk to overshoot the landing.
Just an idea
Healing vibes to Gee. But man, as cool as his projects and videos are, I wish he'd take it down a notch. Honestly, what's the point in public self destruction?!
Two jumps in a week
I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you, boy?
Flying on your motorcycle
Watching all the ground beneath you drop
You'd kill yourself for recognition
Kill yourself to never, ever stop
You broke another mirror
You're turning into something you are not
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Sad he won't be riding Friday/Saturday. He has one of my all time favorite runs with the wall ride transfer. Gee knows Gee, but what I love about his riding is the speed. Hope he tones down the huge stunts and keeps riding with tech, speed and precision.
For those who think he should retire - I don’t think you understand how the whole Atherton family operate. I was chatting to Dan on Saturday and it’s obvious that they all operate on a different level to the rest of us - not just in biking terms but in their willingness to take on seemingly impossible challenges.
This is madness and folly to any sane person unimpressed by brahs doing tedious drops and somersaults on mountain bikes - and the same goes for skateboards, motorbikes, snowboards, skis etc etc etc.
It's the sports entertainment equivalent of junk food - and it's the antithesis of the philosophy behind mountain biking.
Just get the f**k out on your bikes and ride!
Their sponsors have set up very strong incentives (or even requirements) to participate. If those incentives went away, I don't think it's a given that 100% of the riders would participate (at least not in the same way).
You guys don't get it and its hilarious.
Is there someone on site who does actually say no to some of the ideas? Are they calculating what’s physically possible e.g. in order to clear X distance you need a take off speed of Y and that requires a roll in of Z length and Q pitch, or is it all gut instinct and unwavering confidence?
I'm not saying Gee, or Brendan or any of the other Rampage riders fall into this category, I'm just wondering if there are any controls at all in place to prevent a person trying something that has a distinctly higher change of death than success?
He's by far the biggest troll on this site and is a nobody. Probably doesnt even bike.
hahahahahahaha f*ck off.
While I do think the "ban Rampage" crowds argument is applicable in other parts of society, I don't believe this is one of them.
The sad thing is this is seems like rampage is just mega huge slopestyle, him and Brendog will never get the props for riding huge free ride lines.
Sad cause a random major league baseball player is prolly paid millions more. So called "athletes". But hey...that's 'Merica.
SMH
"Sad cause a random major league baseball player is prolly paid millions more. So called "athletes". But hey...that's 'Merica."
Like... You can't really be this simple can you?
Yet put anything mountain bike related behind any kind of paywall and people lose their shit. And then those same people complain that riders aren’t paid enough.
Anyhow, I hope Gee is ok. The drop from the top looked terrifying and looked like such a small chance of being able land it. I know most of these riders seem reckless but what they do is usually very calculated. This drop, and hitting it in the wind when other rampage vets aren’t even riding was very reckless.
Gee has always been one of my favorites. I was looking forward to seeing him in rampage again. I hope that he’s ok and it’s not as bad as it sounds.
60ft thats even bigger than the jah drop!
Healing vibes Gee!
youtu.be/1oGjFGFA1OA?si=DqwFtfUv0_8S60BL
www.instagram.com/p/CyRcun_x1aJ/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng=
Big Sad.
When no one has gone so big you really can’t half ass the build and hope for the best, everything has to be beyond dialled.
Nothing against Gee but this is why you can’t rush things out there and it pays to have a dig crew confident in riding similar features and being able to speak up on speed checks and whether or not something is truely ready to go…
Rampage shouldn't be cancelled, but there do need to be restrictions on what riders can and can't do which you don't get in this kind of "who's the craziest person?" competition that Redbull currently facilitates and broadcasts.
Are they measuring every drop and gap? Banning certain tricks? Banning certain tricks only in certain features? Would riders have to submit some kind of plan to the authorities for approval before starting their dig?
There shouldn't be restrictions on tricks or the features the tricks are performed on. The riders dedicate a ton of time to practicing and perfecting their tricks. We should let them show us what they can do, but they should do it in the safest possible enviroment (the aim of restrictions).
For the record, I understand that restrictions on features will not prevent rider mistakes, but I don't think it's mistakes that riders make on the bike that cause a lot of these incidents. I think it's factors that they can't realistically control that cause the incidents, so I think we need to try to mitigate/eliminate the effects of those factors.
Did I say Rampage shouldn't happen or did I say that Rampage should continue? I said it should continue. I have no idea where you got the idea that I want to start banning bicycles because I quite obviously don't. I actually think people should be allowed to do certain stupid things, but only in the safest possible enviroments. Please read my reply to Sino428 for further elaboration
I totally get where you're coming from. You're childhood was different than mine but I don't really think that changes reality. We're talking about what is safe and what isn't. That's an objective thing. What I'm trying to say is that your personal experience doesn't make certain things less dangerous. It affects statistics, but not danger in and of itself. Do you agree with that?