Xpogo Stuntmen Spring into Mapleton Daze
MAPLETON, Maine (WAGM) - Jumping on a pogo stick is a skill that some people have mastered while others have not. Joseph Lemelin was in Mapleton Wednesday night to watch three individuals put their pogo sticks through quite a workout. From the big stage of the world championships known as Pogopolooza in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Mapleton, Maine in less than a week. Tone Staubs says that while the atmosphere is different, he’s happy to be back in a rural community.
“Getting to come here and perform in Mapleton just feels like home to me, you know it’s a nice intimate crowd, really fun show, and it’s definitely a lot less pressure competing for the world championships, so,” said pogo stick record holder Tone Staubs.
At Pogopolooza, Xpogo stuntmen can attempt to break world records. Nine years ago Staubs broke the record for most jumps in one minute with 266. He even gave us a mini demonstration of what that would look like.
“What you do is you get on it, and you just kinda, jump as fast as you can, let your phone fall out of your pocket that’s what a phone protector is for,” Tone Staubs said as he demonstrated.
One xpogo stuntmen was especially happy to be here. He’s only a couple hours away from his hometown Burton, New Brunswick. Just a few miles outside Fredericton.
“Being close to home, it really feels nice, you know, the last couple weeks I’ve been hanging out in Pittsburgh and that city life just ain’t it for me so I’m super back to be up North with the green you know,” said Burton native Duncan Murray.
How does a New Brunswick native from a town of only 5,000 people learn about such a niche sport? The power of the internet.
“I saw videos of guys like Henry and Tone doing tricks on Youtube and I’m just like wow I gotta have one of those things,” said Duncan Murray, “I saved up for years and when I graduated high school I spent all my money on one of these air powered pogo sticks, so I’ve been doing it ever since.”
The final member of the Xpogo stunt team comes all the way from Long Beach, California. Where he learned about pogo sticking in a very interesting way.
“This kid in my middle school, he had a big one and he was doing it for the talent show, and he knocked himself out on our stage during rehearsal, and I couldn’t stop just looking at his pogostick while he was laying on the ground. I was like woah that thing’s cool and I message dhim on Facebook later that night like which one should I get,” said eight world records holder Henry Cabelus.
Although this may look easy and fun, it takes a lot of dedication to break eight world records.
“I’ve broken nine bones pogo sticking and I’ve had at least eight concussions. So when I was 15 I slipped out in the road in front of my house, I’m still missing some hair from my eyebrow here, that’s because I broke my orbital here, I broke it here, and I broke my nose here, and I broke this here, last year I broke both my feet,” said Henry Cabelus.
Luckily everyone stayed injury free at this show and a new sport was introduced to the community.
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