Sherwood not slowing down
Levi Sherwood will bow out of competitive freestyle motocross this month, but he’s looking forward to riding for himself. Andrew Voerman reports.
Levi Sherwood was on top of the world in 2017, winning two gold medals at the X Games in Minneapolis and another at the Nitro World Games in Salt Lake City. But once he had those medals around his neck – the X Games pair in particular – he found himself wondering about his future.
‘‘In 2017 I achieved the final goals I had left to achieve,’’ said Sherwood, shortly after announcing his intent to retire from competitive motocross following the S-X Open in Auckland this month.
‘‘In the years before that I’d already won plenty, but I was still lacking those X Games gold medals, so when I won them, there was relief and a weight off my shoulders, but then that question of what’s next.
‘‘My first instinct was to keep riding, to do bigger and better tricks, to change the game somehow, but once I moved further along, I realised I was just trying to achieve the same goals I already had.
‘‘It’s no easy feat to go and do it again, but that was essentially what I was going to try to do, to do it over and over, and then I started to think, well, I’ve already done this, I know what that feeling’s like, what more can I achieve? What’s actually going to be a challenge for me?’’
Sherwood kept at it at that stage, but as he began to prepare to defend his X Games titles early last year, he had a moment of clarity.
‘‘Everything was going tickety-boo,’’ he said.
‘‘I had my tricks lined up early, I was nice and prepared, everything was normal, and I remember I had this day when I’d been riding, and my dad had been there watching, and we stopped and had a yarn, and I had a drink of water, and I just remember thinking I wasn’t sure how much longer I could do this for.
‘‘That’s when it started – me thinking I wasn’t sure how much longer I could put myself through the mental drain of going out there and sending it.’’
Sherwood never made it to the X Games last year, after breaking his ankle while training, an injury which required surgery and left him sidelined for 12 months, and when he suffered a concussion after returning to training earlier this year, he decided the time was right to step back from competitive action.
‘‘At that point I was like I’m going to retire, and I didn’t really have a plan for it. I was just going to finish off the back of the really good year I had in 2017 and let it be, because it’s a cool thing to be able to do, but then the guys from S-X Open gave me a call and said: ‘We hear you’re back on the bike, we’re coming to Auckland in November, do you want to be a part of the event?’.
‘‘I’d ridden with them before and it’s such an awesome group of guys and an awesome event, so I told them ‘I want to be a part of it, but I don’t want to compete’, but they talked me around, and it actually started making sense to me.
‘‘I thought ‘hold on a second, I’ve got this opportunity I’ve never had before – I’ve never competed in NZ, let alone Auckland, and I’m planning to retire’, so let’s make it a thing, and I’m actually really stoked they talked me around on it.’’
After the S-X Open on November 16, Sherwood plans to keep riding in exhibitions and to continue to foster the freestyle motocross scene in New Zealand, embracing his passion for the engineering and design side of the sport, where he has found the challenge he was looking for.
What Sherwood is also looking forward to is being free of the pressure he’s felt for most of the past decade, in a sport where the mental game ‘‘is 98 per cent of it’’.
‘‘What I’m looking forward to isn’t escaping the physical side of it, it’s the mental relief I can give myself,’’ he said.
‘‘The pressure that I’d put on myself to be the best I possibly could be and to strive for that top spot, it’s what’s driven me to get where I am, but it is worse than the physical pain an injury would bring, so that’s what I’m looking forward to, that relief.
‘‘I still plan to ride at the same level, but it will be for myself. I enjoy sending it in my backyard at home on a Sunday afternoon just as much as I would in front of a crowd at a competition, so I don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon.’’