This was announced by Jeff Ruhe, ESPN senior vice president, who accepted the invitation from Mayor Willie Brown. I am pleased and excited to welcome ESPN and the X Games to San Francisco. San Francisco's high-energy youth culture will fit perfectly with this dynamic event. After two highly successful events in San Diego, ESPN chose San Francisco's Piers 30 and 32 to serve as the primary site for the fifth annual world-class alternative sports showcase. Venues are yet to be determined for street luge, downhill inline skating, skysurfing and wakeboarding.
All events are free and open to the public.
There will also be truckloads of dirt to create the track for the freestyle motorcross. Every two years we have brought the X Games to a larger market, and now we are very excited to be welcomed to a city of San Francisco's size and cultural diversity. We look forward to what we are certain will be a wonderful partnership with San Francisco. Participants of the X Games will compete in nine different sport categories and 24 sport disciplines, featuring aggressive inline skating, bicycle stunt riding, skateboarding, sportsclimbing and big-air snowboarding. The Games will bring more than 450 of the world's best alternative-sport athletes to San Francisco, among them skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and two of the world's best snowboarders, Peter Line and Ben Hinkley.