Video: Robbie Maddison jumps a motorcycle 120 feet to top of Arc de Triomphe in Vegas
Click above to watch the video
Ever since Evel Knievel made jumping a motorcycle into a national phenomenon, there seems to be an endless supply of insane (and inane) stunts with which to occupy our imaginations. The latest feat was performed in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve and involved launching Robbie Maddison -- the man who performed a different jump in Sin City last New Year's Eve -- over 100 feet and landing at the top of the Arc de Triomphe at the Paris hotel. Of course, what goes up, must come down, and so did Robbie. Fortunately, he managed to stick the landing but he reportedly injured his hand in the process. Watch the whole bit go down on the video -- complete with the obligatory cut-shots to his rightfully concerned significant other -- after the break. In related news, Robbie Knievel also made a (less impressive) Vegas jump that night, and that video can also be seen after the break.
[Source: Youtube]
Video - Robbie Madison
Video - Robbie Knievel
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
sue_me 7:19PM (1/02/2009)
That's a hell of a drop...
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sitruc 7:20PM (1/02/2009)
That was the most impressive part of it. I was surprised he was able to keep it up and drive.
sue_me 7:22PM (1/02/2009)
I'm not surprised his hand broke, its what kept him on that bike at impact.
Conundrum 9:56PM (1/02/2009)
Just a bit more throttle and he would have tore up much more than his hand. he overshot the sweet spot by quite a bit!
sitruc 7:19PM (1/02/2009)
Good stunt although it was overdone by ESPN once again. The broadcast didn't need to be that long and drawn out. At least it was better than the joke of a stunt Fox had. I thought Autoblog would have covered this with the truck flip.
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DC 7:20PM (1/02/2009)
Wow all of 6 people (non crew) watched Knievel's jump.
While 6,000+ lined up to see Maddison.
You tell me who rocks better.
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sue_me 7:26PM (1/02/2009)
Total lackluster stunt...
JW 7:27PM (1/02/2009)
I watched both of those jumps in HD and Maddison's feat was much more impressive. And Fox could have taken some productions notes from ESPN on how to shoot the bike stunts. I guess they didn't want people to realize that Knievel was jumping in front of the "volcano" and not over it. You could see that they added some secondary firepots on the street so it looked like he was closer to volcano than he was.
In this era of freestyle MX, Knievel's stunt look less impressive than they once had. I'd be more impressed with Knievel if he did his jumps on low-tech bikes like his old man, of whom I was a fan. Get out the Harley, boy!
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sashazur 7:27PM (1/02/2009)
Like most of these things, they padded the hell out of it, otherwise it would have lasted all of 10 seconds. Overall I thought it was lame, but the highlights were the computer animations showing WHAT COULD GO WRONG.
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JW 7:31PM (1/02/2009)
Oh yeah... I had almost forgotten the "what could go wrong" animations. That was so FOX!
I recorded both so I could watch the actual stunts w/o the build-up BS.
Galley 7:42PM (1/02/2009)
I can understand jumping up onto the Arc, but driving back off? That's insane!
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timurjonchik 7:57PM (1/02/2009)
I was there wached only one stunt but it was crazyyyy
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jason 9:25PM (1/02/2009)
The only stunt even aired in my area was the Knievel jump, I would have rather seen R. Millens or the Arc jump.
P.S.
Fook google and their youtube video pop-up ads.
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sitruc 10:50PM (1/02/2009)
It was on ESPN.
Zobi 5:39AM (1/03/2009)
The Robbie one was pretty stupid because if you watched it on other local channels in vegas, you can see that he didn't even jump over the volcano at the mirage. He just jumped beside it! It was so stupid! The first one sponsored by red bull was alot better though. They also had a off road vehicle do the jump too but unfortunately, that one didn't go so well...
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JDMlover 1:35AM (1/03/2009)
There was nothing to catch him if he fell........
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Joe_Flow_1 11:44AM (1/03/2009)
You know all the orignal Evil Knievel and Robbie Knievel..... it was always about jumping over stuff.... not onto stuff.
Robbie Madison's stunt, which is crazy to say the least.... just didn't have that much sense of accomplishment to me like the old days of jumping over stuff instead of onto stuff. I'm guessing most of the Moto-X guys could have done that stunt and probably added a back flip.
I not trying to take anything away from this dude, but there was just too much hype by ESPN.
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TM_M 11:50AM (1/03/2009)
Is it me or does Robbie Madison and Robbie Knievel look exactly the same?
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Mobius_1 12:51PM (1/03/2009)
He made it look soooooooooo easy! That was awesome.
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vai2iant 12:11AM (1/04/2009)
I think Robbie Knievel is talented but dont get me wrong, i laughed on new years when i saw him jump on TV. I was like WTF he didn't even go NEAR the volcano. Besides, I think he was drunk too, his interview afterwords he was acting pretty goofy. He did say that was his first jump since August, so I understand it not being totally huge or anything. His jump in London later this year is going to be very impressive if he pulls it off. 13 City buses, 2 more than his dad did back in the 70's. I think he will redeem himself.
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