This week The Wheelchair Site is recognizing extreme wheelchair athlete Aaron Fotheringham!

I came across Fotheringham’s video featured on the Colours Wheelchair homepage, as I was browsing the web last week. If you don’t already know who Aaron Fotheringham is, I suggest you check out his video at www.colourswheelchair.com – it really speaks for itself!

Fourteen-year-old Aaron Fotheringham landed the first ever wheelchair backflip on July 13, 2006 at 8:57pm. With “Wheels” as his nickname, there’s simply no doubt of his uniquely awesome skateboarding prowess. However what’s even more miraculous is that he tricked out in his standard Colours Boing! wheelchair!

Doing what he terms as “Hard Core Sitting” (or performing skatepark maneuvers in his wheelchair); tricks like Aaron’s have never been seen on the wheelchair action sports front. Aaron created his extreme take on skateboarding when he started riding at the age of 10. It was his brother Brian, a BMX trickster, who suggested that he attempt to drop a quarter pipe! After that Aaron was absolutely hooked! Friends purchased his Colours N’ Motion wheelchair so he could do more skate tricks, and at the insistence of fellow skaters, family, and Joe Wichert, the Vegas AmJam coordinator, Aaron decided to register for his first skate competition in June, 2005.

Initially Aaron went with the goal to learn to perform a full back flip in his chair. From the video you’ll see he succeeded! Fotheringham says, “[It was] The best week of my life! I went there wanting to learn to do a backflip, but after I actually did it, it took me a minute to realize I’d really landed it. It wasn’t easy, getting there!”

Fotheringham thanks Mike and John Box from Colours Wheelchairs, for making his “indestructible” wheels.

September is just around the corner, which means that Chantal will be back with us soon. Please keep checking back for her latest installment of Wheels in the City!