The 19-year-old Australian had little time to celebrate following his historic X Games Best Trick Gold Medal in Los Angeles last week and made the most of his two-day practice session at the Metal Mulisha compound before departing for Central Europe.

While his front-flip won over the judges at X Games, he knows that a full repertoire of tricks will be required to score a podium result against some of the sport’s best.

“It has been a pretty crazy week and I haven’t had too much time to let the gold medal sink in,” said Strong.

“After X Games I went straight back to the Metal Mulisha compound to brush up on my freestyle and then flew straight out here to Poland for the X-Fighters event.

“I had always planned to be here after X Games but it has been a few months since I’ve really focused on freestyle.

“After the crash in Dubai I had a few weeks off to recover and then put all of my time into getting my best trick dialed.

“I am really looking forward to being a part of it this weekend and the next and final stop of the X-Fighters tour which will be held at home in Sydney.”

This weekend’s event will be held at City Stadium in Poznan, a venue capable of seating 43,000 FMX fans.

The competition stage of an X-Fighters event sees riders go head-to-head over a 90 second period in an effort to earn the top score from a panel of 5 judges.

Riders are awarded points based on variety, challenge and execution, style, use of course and show and spectator reaction.

Strong’s previous best X-Fighters result was a 9th place in Madrid last year.

The 19-year-old landed a perfect front flip his opening run, the first in the history of X Games, earning a 95.64 score from the judging panel.

A second run wasn’t needed for the competition’s youngest participant, and all that was left was to stand atop the dirt mound and soak up the applause.

Strong narrowly held off fellow countrymen Cameron Sinclair and Josh Sheehan who rounded out an all-Australian podium.

“This is a dream come true, to me it is like winning a gold medal at the Olympics,” said Strong.

“I had to put everything on the line knowing that the other guys would be tough to beat. The Aussies were on form tonight and I’m proud to be able to stand with them on the podium.

“This is redemption for me after my crash last year. I kept at it and trained so hard for this so it is an amazing feeling to finally take home the gold.”

Strong’s successful landing of the front flip is a first for any competition in the world. Many have tried but he is the first to succeed and can now savour the gold medal as the highlight of his career thus far.

Strong, 19, from Lockhart, has worked tirelessly to perfect his signature move, the gravity-defying front flip, and is hopeful of impressing the judging panel by landing it in front of a pumping Staples Centre crowd tomorrow.

Entries in a number of the various freestyle motocross categories at the 2010 event brought about Strong’s undoing, with an early practice crash and subsequent concussion ruling him out of the running.

He has set his sights on one category in 2011 and will only be satisfied with gold in what many call the Olympics of action sports.

“I opened the year with a few tours and shows but have really knuckled down in the past few months and spent time at home training and working on the trick,” said Strong.

“It’s good to go in there knowing I can do this. I’ve landed it a bunch of times at home and the last few practice sessions in the Metal Mulisha compound foam pits this week.

“I don’t remember much about my crash last year, I was out cold for a full 2 minutes so I consider this my first real shot at it.

“It’s great to see so many Australians in the lineup, it shows just how strong the sport is at home and how competitive we are.

“This will be tough but it is the big one that everyone wants to win and I feel like I’ve worked hard enough to make it happen.”

Strong shot to the sport’s forefront last year after becoming the first rider to land the front flip ramp-to-ramp over 85 feet.

The Best Trick category will be contested from 6.15pm (PT) on Thursday July 28, which is 11.15am (EST) in Australia.

For news and updates visit www.jackostrong.com or ‘Like’ www.facebook.com/MMjacksonstrong on facebook.

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