Jamie Bestwick wins fifth BMX Freestyle Vert title in a row

Jamie Bestwick made X Games history Friday, winning his fifth consecutive gold medal in BMX Freestyle Vert and his eighth gold in the event overall. But the raucous celebration was tempered by several minutes of scary silence.

Just minutes prior to their final runs, as the bikers were revving up their best tricks, Simon Tabron’s bike landed imperfectly, and he crashed onto the hardwood ramp, thudding onto his side, as his bike landed on top of him.

Tabron groaned in pain for several minutes in front of a silent crowd at the Nokia Theatre before he was helped off the ramp by paramedics and eventually rolled away in a stretcher.

“Everyone wants a clean contest,” Bestwick said. “We’re all feeding off each other, and we’re all trying to take the intensity level right down to the last run. ? It’s sad when somebody goes down.”

However the BMXers managed to pick up right where they left off after Tabron’s departure. In his final run, McCann landed the second no-handed 900 in BMX competition history and took the lead with 90 points.

But moments later, Bestwick showed why many think the 40-year-old Brit is unbeatable, stringing together a near-perfect 47-point run to slide him two points ahead of McCann for the gold.

And Bestwick said afterwards that he had a headache, a torn muscle, and a sinus infection ? so he didn’t even go for his best set of tricks.

“I wasn’t about to gamble that much,” Bestwick said. “Sometimes when you leave the big tricks out ? I mean, McCann didn’t, he put them down today. But maybe my riding was just that bit better than his.”

Vince Byron used a 540 double tailwhip to help him round out the podium in third.

Matthew.stevens@latimes.com

Twitter: MattStevensLAT