Guinness Record for wheelchair backflip

Aaron Fotheringham, 16, earned a Guinness World Record last weekend as the first person to land a backflip in a wheelchair. (Click the image to see the full photo by Stephen R. Sylvanie/Special to the Home News.) From the Las Vegas Sun:

To achieve the trick, Fotheringham, rolled down a skatepark ramp to generate enough speed. He then went up another ramp and landed his flip on flat ground.

He first completed the trick in 2006, and has dozens of videos of his backflips, but had yet to make it official...

Aaron Fotheringham, who suffers from spina bifida and has been in a wheelchair since he was 13, came up short in his quest to set a record for most consecutive backflips in 45 seconds. His unofficial record is six back flips in a row, however, he could not get consecutive flips Oct. 25.

"I'm a little bit disappointed I didn't get the consecutive flips, but I guess I'm taking it for granted that I got in the book," Fotheringham said.

Wheelchair athlete's back flip lands him in record book (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

• [Hagrid]

  The Las Vegas Sun has an awesome video about this:
  http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/2008/oct/31/1023/

• [veritasluxmea22]

  I do not want to be there if he ever screws one of those flips up. It’s bad enough to see a relatively healthy person not land one, but seeing a paralyzed person? But still, “mad props” is right!

• [MarlboroTestMonkey7]

  Guess bi-fida is not enough, he’s going for the self inflicted tri-fida.

• [camfrye]

  Careful, man! Doing that, you’re liable to break your ba– um, nevermind.

• [A New Challenger]

  Hmmm…. they need to have a Para-X-Games.

• [Cunning]

  Clicked for the backflip, stayed for the totally cute love story.

• [sammich]

  Veritasluxmea22@13 and Camfrye@14 – He’s got spina bifida and he’s in a wheelchair, there’s no reason to assume he’s paralyzed. Just saying. :)

• [flytch]

  this is totally cool… nuts… but cool :)

• [scaught]

  LOL @ #5

  nice youtube vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5B5iB67Ld0

• [w000t]

  @ Crash! Bang!

  I thought the same thing: How can one be a record, but several weren’t enough to be a record? The article doesn’t clarify much, but my guess is that the consecutive backflips in 45s record was previously set sans wheelchair, but he was going to beat it avec wheelchair.

• [Takuan]

  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436613/

• [bolamig]

  That literally brought tears to my eyes. The youtube video needs to be linked from the wiki for “Balls to the wind”. Mad props fo sho!

• [hlehmann2]

  I think that if they weren’t already in a wheelchair, learning to do back-flips might put them in one.

• [cstatman]

  totally badass.

  MAD PROPS for not backing down, accepting and slouching, but driving to continue athleticism and rocking the ramps.

• [Crash! Bang!]

  i’m confused. if he’s the FRIST!, then wouldnt just doing 1 in a row be a record?

• [arkizzle]

  Roll on, bro.. roll on!

• [EddieR]

  this must be even more difficult to do with HUGE BALLS. damn impressive.