Maddison is a Deadman Riding

With Evil Knievel as a role model, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that Robbie Maddison has become a stunt biker himself.

‘Maddo’, as he is commonly known, has broken a number of world records and has jumped over some of the world’s most famous landmarks during a career that started when he was just four years old.

However, Maddison may never have made it as far as he has, having been declared dead on two occasions. 

“I have been clinically dead twice now, my heart stopped beating,” he said. “It happened when I was a child, I got really sick and nearly suffocated pretty much to death.

“I was revived back to life in the ambulance through mouth-to-mouth and heart massage. I then spent quite a bit of time in hospital and it was kind of rocky. My mum wrote a letter documenting what was going on the entire time. It was a wild time; I was only a baby so I don’t remember much of it.”

Despite his ordeal, Maddison got on a bike at the age of four and has never looked back as he first began racing at the age of six. However, he was back in hospital again as a teenager after taking a break from riding.

“I then got really sick again when I was 16. I wasn’t riding at the time - I was doing a 9-5 job as an electrician - and I worked myself into the ground. 

“I was trying to work as many hours as I could and trying to save up to buy a house. It was just work, work, work and I got rundown. I finally got a day off after working something like 35 days straight and went jet skiing.

“It was in a dirty lake, I had a crash, swallowed some water and got meningitis and viral encephalitis. With those two bugs in me, it just crippled me, my body shut down.

“I had five spinal taps in hospital because they didn’t know what was wrong. I was paralysed and sick and it didn’t look as though I was going to make a recovery. Finally, medication kicked in and brought me back to some kind of healthy state.”

The Australian stuntman then made a full recovery and went on to realise his dreams. Since then, he has learnt to take each day as it comes and to enjoy life to the full. 

“Through dedication and just having that desire to achieve dreams I made a full recovery and went on to become known for my crazy stunts,” Maddison continued. “There’s been a few times where I have had close calls and I’ve had some bad injuries riding dirt bikes but to me all my injuries have been lessons and it’s made me a lot wiser. 

“I appreciate life, some people will say I’m stupid and I take undue risks, but that is what life is about, living your dreams and this is my dream and I’m living it.”

When growing up in New South Wales, Maddison had a number of people that he looked up to and wanted to follow in the footsteps of.

“I get inspired by so many different people, my idols were definitely famous motocross riders. Evil Knievel to me was like an unachievable dream, but he was like ‘the man.’ His son Robbie touched me with his Caesar's Palace jump, that really triggered the daredevil in me, it definitely inspired me.” 

It wasn’t just people from the world of bikes that inspired the 29-year-old rider whilst he was growing up, though.

“My dad was one of my big inspirations, he is pretty much my idol,” Maddison continued. “I learnt so much from him and my mum is such a nice lady. Those two were inspirations for me and I just wanted to take a mixture of both of their personalities and that is what I am.

“My mum taught me love and compassion, whilst my dad taught me about drive and hard work and with those tools I’ve conquered all my dreams so far.”

Some of Maddison’s achievements include jumping 96 feet onto the Arc de Triomphe in front of Paris Las Vegas before descending 80 feet back down, doing a backflip over Tower Bridge in London with the drawbridge open 25 metres and jumping the entire length of an American football field. None of these come close to what he considers to be his craziest stunt, though.

“For me the craziest stunt I’ve done to date has been jumping over the Corinth Canal in Greece. With that jump I had to face a lot of fear. It was an 80 foot jump and there was an 85 foot fall if it went wrong, so it was definitely a milestone in my career.

“There have also been some amazing moments such as getting to jump the sand dunes in Egypt with the Pyramids in the background and I will treasure that for the rest of my life.”

Make sure you don't miss the next round of Red Bull X-Fighters in Madrid on 15 July by watching it live on rebull.tv

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