11-year-old to make X Games history
(CBS News) Two hundred of the most extreme athletes are bringing their bikes and their boards to the XGames in Los Angeles this weekend. Eleven-year-old Jagger Eaton, the competition's youngest athlete, will make X Games history just by showing up.
"I came here last year, and I thought I'd probably never be in the X Games," Jagger said. "And I'm standing here competing with some of the greatest guys in the world of skate boarding and I just, it's crazy! "
It's crazy because the other guys are his skateboarding idols and on average more than twice his age.
Jagger said he "definitely" wants to beat them, "but I don't think I will 'cause they're all amazing skateboarders."
He takes on one of skateboarding's biggest and steepest stages Thursday, competing in the mega ramp big air contest. He jumps over a 55 foot gap into a 27 foot tall quarter-pipe. Jagger is just five feet tall and weighs 76 pounds, so the 70 foot drop is 14 times bigger than he is.
Jagger may be one of the best young skaters in the country but he's still a kid. He says the first time he got up on one of those ramps, he looked over it and said, no way.
"Before we even jumped the gap we were all, dude, I don't even want to go up this elevator."
He quickly conquered that fear. After all, he's been skating almost since he could walk. His parents run a skate park back home in Mesa, Ariz. where both his older brother Jet and his four-year-old brother Koston also skate.
Geoff Eaton is part dad, part coach. "Of course I have the regular, you know, mom/dad nerves that you get while your child is participating in any kind of sport," he said. "but, I'm really confident in his riding ability. And so as long as I don't go up to the top and look down, you know, I'm okay."
Jagger said he's sick of people asking him if he has "Moves like Jagger," like the song says. "Because there's these girls at home who always say, Jagger got swagger, and it's so annoying! It's like, it's like that - but times two."
