In a career with more ups and downs than his signature power-runs on the bike, Dirt Jumper Sandro Silva unpacks his winning mentality and what his greatest achievement has been: a close circle of family and friends to keep hm on track.

Director’s Vision for ‘Dirt Jumper’

This was the third and final film I directed for Betclic Portugal’s “Defy The Odds” campaign, which focuses on sportspeople who have dedicated their lives to lesser-known sports. We came across Sandro after a lot of research and after our first contact we knew we had a super interesting story that deserved to be told. He was a trailblazer for the sport here in Portugal, and his raw, unapologetic attitude to his sport and to life in general had something very appealing that stood in contrast to this very PC age we’re living in. He will say what he feels and approaches everything with 100% effort and dedication and I really connected to that. He was coming off a long-term injury however, so everyone, Sandro included, was aware that he may not be able to perform all his best tricks on shoot day. Sure enough, on the main shoot day he struggled a bit and had a hard time pulling off some of his moves for most of the day, which was driving him crazy and to be honest, made him a bit difficult to handle at times 🙂 But he’s such a warrior that he kept at it and in the end performed that massive backside tailwhip, which was unbelievable to see. With that weight off his shoulders he suddenly transformed into the gentle bear that he is, grabbing his wife and son and celebrating with everyone there. It was beautiful and I thank him for letting us tell his story and thank the whole team for their amazing efforts.