Anthony has some new tricks up his sleeves to bring out to the Dew Tour stops. Jared Souney © Lat34

Napolitan Looks Relaxed In First Place

It’s taken Anthony Napolitan just one year to rise from relative obscurity, and last place in the 2005 Dew Tour overall standings, to being the BMX Dirt points leader at the 2006 Dew Tour. In that short amount of time, the 20 year-old from Youngstown, Ohio, has blasted onto the national competition scene to beat out Tour favorites Ryan Nyquist, Ryan Guettler and Luke Parslow.

Napolitan surprised everyone with his performance in Louisville earlier this tour. After the first round in the Dirt Finals. Napolitan was sitting in sixth place. Feeling happy to just be in the Finals and that he had nothing to lose he threw out a final ambitious run. He did a frontflip no-hander, a single whip and then a 360 double whip. It was enough to clinch first place and rocket Napolitan’s name into headlines across the country. 

Then he came to the Denver leg of the Dew Tour and squashed any murmurs that his previous performance was a one-time thing by placing second in the Dirt Finals. And if there were any last remaining questions about his abilities Napolitan went on to grab a Bronze medal at the X-Games in L.A.

He attributes much of his success to training at Camp Woodward and riding with all kinds of different people including Kevin Robinson, Chad Kagy, Jamie Bestwick, Axel Jurgens, John Saxton, Andy Alverez, Steve McCann, John Parker and Ricky Violet. Napolitan says that riding with such a diverse group of riders has helped shaped his own style and confidence.

Now the confident young rider is ready to take on the Vans Invitational in Portland. When asked if he’s feeling nervous about holding on to first place he responds, “No, not really. I don’t really think about things that much. I just try to have fun on my bike, and have fun hanging out with all the athletes.”

But, don’t let his calm demeanor fool you. He does have a few new tricks up his sleeves.  “I’m going to work on bringing some new tricks to the stops. But, the tricks that I’ve been using at the first two stops and at X-Games have been working out pretty well. But, I think that personally, I’ll have to start pushing myself a little harder and bring some of my harder tricks out there.”

And how about the rumor that Napolitan could bring a no-handed front flip to tailwhip to the Tour? “Well that all started when Scotty Cranmer and I were trying the figure out frontflip tailwhips. We found that it was easier to do tricks before the tailwhip so Scotty and myself experimented with x-ups and no-handers before the tailwhip. But I have never landed them successfully into the foam.”

The fact that he’s even trying them says that Napolitan will be a force to be reckoned with for a long time.

-Steve Lemig