With an approach speed of approximately 40 mph, Maddison took off from the north side of the bridge, performed a no-handed backflip, and held his landing in front of the south tower of one of the World’s most famous sights.

Maddison joined forces with Red Bull once again to make his UK dream a reality, having already chalked up the world’s longest ever motorbike jump (106.9m), and the highest ever vertical ‘step up’ at the replica Arc de Triomphe in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve 2008 (25.9m).

Maddison said: “The whole experience was awesome. Since the jumps in Las Vegas I’ve been set on doing something special here in London so the Red Bull team and I have been secretly scoping out Tower Bridge for months. We had a matter of minutes on the bridge and had to time everything to the second, there were so many factors to get right, but we pulled it off. People say I’m crazy, but I just want to push the boundaries of my sport and my body to the limit and I love taking on these huge challenges. It was an incredible feeling to fly between the two towers and over the Thames.”

Maddison will return to London on 22 August to take part in the final stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour 2009 at Battersea Power Station. Many people helped make this event possible, including Visit London (www.visitlondon.com) and the owners of Tower Bridge, the City of London Corporation (www.cityoflondon.gov.uk)

Robbie Maddison

Born in Kiama, New South Wales and now living in the US, Maddison Motocross (FMX) riders. He has won numerous contests and seized the Planet-X Summer Games Gold Medal in 2004.

This summer he also won the Red Bull X-Fighters event in Canada, competing against the world’s best FMX riders. In 2007, Maddison broke the world motorcycle jumping record by travelling 98 metres through the air over a football field.

The following year, he smashed his own record twice, setting a final distance of 106.9 metres in Melbourne. On New Year’s Eve 2008, Maddison hit the headlines once again with a gravity-defying leap off a ramp onto a life-size replica of the Arc de Triomphe in glitzy Las Vegas.

He ended the stunt by riding off the monument and dropping 12 metres onto a second ramp, before returning to the ground – complete with a badly gashed hand.

ROBBIE MADDISON Freestyle Motocross

Rider - Biography Name: Robbie Maddison Discipline: Freestyle Motocross Date of birth: July 14, 1981 Hometown: Kiama, Australia Robbie Maddison rocketed into 2008 with a bang—jumping his motorcycle 322 feet, 7.5 inches to break the world record at the Rio All-Suite Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

He followed it up later that year with strong finishes on the AST Dew Tour and Red Bull X-Fighters series. He ended 2008 back in Vegas, jumping his bike onto the top of the 96-foot-high Arc de Triomphe at Paris Las Vegas and then freefell off of it, at Red Bull: New Year. No Limits, again on ESPN. For 2009, he’s planning on breaking a few more barriers.

“I think my biggest accomplishments are all ahead of me,” Robbie, a.k.a. Maddo, says. “I have another big jump planned for 2009 and getting really close to the top spots in FMX this year.”

 With a solid second overall on the Dew Tour and third overall in the Red Bull X-Fighters series, Robbie has developed a hunger for first and he’s gunning to take the Dew Tour, X Games and the Red Bull X-Fighters in 2009.

“I don’t really have any small goals,” he says. “The three contests are really different; each tests riders in different ways. So my biggest accomplishment will be when I can say I’ve won all three. I just want to ride the best I can and close the gap between me and first place in every contest I compete in.”

Robbie likes to joke that he was born on a bike and came into the world doing a no-hander onto the delivery table. It’s not far from the truth. He started riding at age four and racing at six, and became Australia’s national amateur champion at 16.

“I had to make a tough decision about whether to turn pro and try to make a go of it on the professional racing circuit,” he says. “In the end I took an apprenticeship as an electrician instead. Then one day in 2002, I’m looking in a magazine and I see pictures of a few of my old heroes doing this new sport of FMX, just crazy stuff. I got out on my bike and started messing around with some old tricks and trying some new ones, and I was hooked.”

Robbie won the King of Australia contest the next year, and he’s been pro ever since.