GEE ATHERTON

AT THE BLEEDING EDGE OF THE SPORT FOR TWO DECADES

George ‘Gee’ Atherton, the middle of the three Atherton siblings, has the reputation as the most extreme of the bunch. His results alone earn him a place on this list – he’s won multiple national, World Cup and World Championships titles, as well as bagging two secondplace finishes at Red Bull Rampage. It’s his wild riding that sticks in our minds, though, from an unforgettable cliff drop past some stunned climbers on one MBUK photoshoot to his recent Slate Line and Knife Edge videos (and crash). Brother Dan, a hero in his own right, who just missed the cut for our top 50, says: “We didn’t really go in for heroes growing up – we had each other. Gee has this ability to get the job done – even if he’s crashed and hurt himself, he’ll dig deep until it’s finished. He’s always quite calculated; people think he’s wild, because of the scale of the stuff he’ll take on and those huge crashes, but most of the time he won’t do something until he thinks he can do it easily. His work ethic and that professional vibe he brought to training pushed me and Rach to go harder, too.”