Red Bull X-Fighters adds Japan and South Africa for 2013New Zealand’s Levi Sherwood will be looking to defend his Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour championship title in an expanded 2013 tour after prevailing against Thomas Pages of France in the most riveting battle in the 12-year history of the world’s most prestigious and challenging freestyle motocross competition. The Red Bull X-Fighters will be going to the four corners of the planet next year with new stops in Osaka, Japan and Pretoria, South Africa. Japan has two top stars in the tour, Eigo Sato and Takayuki Higashino.The soaring popularity of the sport in eastern Asia and Africa has prompted the expansion of the World Tour to Japan and South Africa while the traditional locations on Dubai’s sandy beaches, in Madrid’s Las Ventas bullfighting arena and on Glen Helen, California’s cavernous track will be back on the calendar as well. The sport where riders jump with their motorcycles up to 30 meters in distance and 15 meters high while performing spectacular tricks off and alongside their motorcycles will also return to Mexico City, which hosted stops for six years, for the first time since 2010. 
21 year old Sherwood (pictured above), was the youngest champion in the history of Red Bull X-Fighters in 2012, winning three of the five stops but needing a victory in the season finale in Sydney, Australia against hard-charging rival Pages. The Frenchman turned the world of FMX on its head in the second half of the season with a breathtaking array of new tricks that pushed the sport to the next level. Pages finished a close second, just 20 points behind Sherwood’s 335 points, while the 2011 champion, Dany Torres of Spain was third. Chile’s Javier Villegas got a career-best fourth while Japan’s Eigo Sato took fifth. Schedule:
 UAE - United Arab EmiratesPhotos: Joerg Mitter, Balazs Gardi |
