'While everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere, another thing happened at this year’s Oscars. Tony Hawk, the world’s most iconic skateboarder, unveiled his latest trick: Standing without a cane.

Hawk, 53, took the stage with Kelly Slater and Shaun White to introduce a James Bond movie montage, but it was Hawk’s mobility that seemed the most notable. Less than three weeks before, he had snapped his right femur when he misjudged the landing on a McTwist — a 540-degree aerial rotation. It’s a trick he’s done tens of thousands of times. That day, though, his speed was off.

“After I fell,” he said, “I rolled over and my leg didn’t.” Surgeons repaired the bone with a titanium rod, and a physical therapist designed an aggressive rehab regimen, but neither offered a timeline for recovery. Their reticence granted Hawk something like permission. The next day, he posted a video of himself crutching his way down a hospital corridor.

His unmistakable goal in an aggressive therapy regimen was to walk unassisted onto the Dolby stage. Hawk’s stick-to-it-iveness is the stuff of legend — his quest to land the sport’s first 900-degree spin spanned four White House administrations — but his approach to this rehab is, in technical terms, bananas. Hawk’s femur break came the day before HBO released a trailer for “Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off,” a long-awaited documentary about his life and career which spends ample time on his injuries. Directed by Sam Jones, the film excavates the roots, reaches, and complex consequences of his perseverance.' - NY Times -