Andy Buckworth, a favorite to win X Games gold in big air this summer, may have to sit the event out due to a recent decade gone wrong where he landed flat on his stomach, rupturing his spleen. Though many BMX athletes have gone through similar injuries, such as most decorated X Games athlete ever Dave Mirra, this injury may see Andy Buckworth sitting through the X Games with a 12-16 week recovery period. He will likely get a CT scan just before the X Games to weigh the possibility of still competing, but an injury like this is not one to try to cheat recovery time on.

Buckworth had planned to film for Nitro Circus' 3D movie at Travis Pastrana's house. Nitro Circus is a traveling action sports show in which Andy Buckworth is a huge addition, being one of the best BMX riders on the mega ramp today. As well as missing this and X Games, he will be missing the upcoming Dew Tour events. Injuries at this particular time, right before the summer contest season, have plagued action sports athletes since the beginning. But by joining the ranks of other BMX athletes who have ruptured their spleen, Dave Mirra and Mat Hoffman, it might be a good luck charm to being the next legend of BMX!

Wow. There is just TOO much going on in this. These Nitro Circus shows are indescribable. And I think Pastrana is literally marrying Lyn-Z. That's funny how it's thrown into a montage of world's firsts on motorcycles, bikes, and skateboards. Even WHEELZ did a wheelchair frontflip. Kid is amazing.

Unfortunately for Andy Buckworth, last year's third-place contestant in the Big Air event at X Games was injured while attempting a difficult trick called the "decade" . The trick went wrong and may very well cost him another shot at X Games medals this year.

Andy is awake and in good care at a hospital in Greenville, replying to messages on the internet and being visited by close friends.There is a possibility Andy will be back riding by the time of X Games, but with an injury like this he will likely not be competition-ready come X Games.

The initial reports has Andy out for no less than six weeks. This is the second straight day a member of the Nitro Circus Live crew has gone down with an injury forcing them out of the competition season.

Send Andy some e-cards on facebook/twitter and let's hope the madman gets back on his bike soon because the Big Air competitors were definitely worried about him this year.

Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images North America

Andy Buckworth is an insane park rat that brings some more original tricks to the table. It's not often you will see a double downside whip, nor a legit decade (not a 3 downside). He also pulls a double backflip. I think this is beyond park rat. Dew Tour animal?

The traveling action sports show is not a new concept, we've seen it before with tours such as Tony Hawk's Boom Boom HuckJam and more recently with Nuclear Cowboyz. We've even become accustom to the occasional fmx or bmx demo at halftimes of major sporting events. Not everyone lives by a beach, or owns a dirt bike, or has a skatepark in their town, so the point of these tours is to bring the action to them.

There's nothing like the feeling you get when you first witness a backflip on a motorcycle, or stand staring up at the enormous mega ramp, thinking to yourself, would I have the balls to slide down the ramp on my butt nevertheless do a double backflip on a bike.

Point being, there's good reason why these traveling tour's have done so well, there's nothing like seeing something for the first time. That's exactly what the Nitro Circus crew has been doing down under for the past month. Backed by Red Bull and the craziest athlete in action sports, Travis Pastrana, the Nitro Circus pride themselves on innovating every show.

Travis himself has been blown away with what the crew has accomplished while performing down under. In a recent journal entry from the tour Travis had this to say, "I'm really proud of the crew we have down here and a lot of new tricks have gone down. Our goal every Nitro show is to have someone attempt a top-level trick that has never been tried before."

So far on the tour, Clinton Moore landed the first ever body varial to heel clicker combination, while fmx rider Mark "Monz" Monea landed what people are calling the first ever 360 front flip, a trick he calls the "carry on". Even though some are claiming the trick is a variation of a front flip the Pages brothers landed 2 years ago, it was still an impressive corked out variation that has generated plenty of Internet buzz.



BMX rider Andy Buckworth has invented a new variation of the double front flip pretty much every time he jumps the mega ramp, but the real highlight for Buckworth came when he almost landed the triple front flip. It's not long ago that the first ever double flip was landed by Anthony Napolitan but it looks like Buckworth could pull the triple front at this years X Games.



And then there's Jay Toohey, who somehow landed the first ever triple tail whip back flip during a show in New Zealand. This trick didn't seem possible a few years back.



The 2011 Nitro Circus Tour has officially been dubbed as the "The Progression Tour" for the amount of new and impossible tricks that have been landed.

Pushing the limits has also come at a cost, there have been several injuries while down under, most recently Pastrana and Cam Sinclair were hospitalized. Cam Sinclair under-rotated his double backflip resulting in a serious concussion. The details of Pastrana's injury are less known, but according to ESPN, "Travis experienced severe pain in his leg before the show...it was a suspected blood clot, or blood rushing to a muscle around his knee area."

As details develop it will be interesting to see how this effects his recent Nascar experiment.

Don't miss your chance to witness the progression tour first hand when the Nitro Circus is bringing their show to North America soon.

Photos courtesy of Nitro Circus