When the 2010 Winter Games shutter up in March, there’s one souvenir everyone will come away with… post-2010 blues. Energy slump. Adrenaline deficit. What then?
Here’s what: Red Bull Crashed Ice—the world’s wildest, watch-it-through-your-fingers winter competition—coming soon to Québec City, QC.
It’s a little later than previous years, spokesman Scott Jewett says, “because we always broadcast live, and in February all our TV trucks will be commited out West, we decided to bump the event to March—spring break.”
Red Bull Crashed Ice has to be seen live to be believed. (Last year 95,000 people did.) Don’t be surprised if it’s an official Olympic demonstration sport 10 years from now, when the boardercross generation is calling the shots.
The best way to describe it is to sketch the history: freak winter storm of freezing rain in a small Austrian town turns the narrow, sloping, picturesque streets into a sheet of ice. Most people think: treacherous. A couple of entrepreneurial outliers think: new sport? What if competitors climbed the highest hill and donned skates—first to the bottom wins?
At nightfall in Québec City on March 20, 2010, you can see what that dream wrought: a steep, 61-m (200-ft vertical drop and 550-m (1,804-ft) long track—in the dark it looks like a floodlit tongue of ice—beginning in front of the castle-like Fairmont Le Château Frontenac and snaking down through the heart of the old walled city to the historic Place de Paris opposite the St. Lawrence River. And racers from 10 countries gunning for a cash purse: ducking, dodging, getting air on the jumps and hitting speeds of 50 km/h (31 mph).
Spectators, who come from as far as Toronto, ON and equivalent points south of the 49th, are often there—let’s be honest—to see the tumbles. But the real draw is the city itself—its historic monuments limned by stage lights, its night-life beckoning.
“It’s a giant street party,” Jewett says, “and when the race ends there are always around 10,000 people looking to keep it going. Last year we had DJ Mastercraft on the Grand Allée.”
www2.quebecregion.com/e/index.asp
www.bonjourquebec.com
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Do they have this as sports games online?
I missed the chance to see the Red Bull ‘Crashed Ice’! games due to some very important personal matters and work at home. Thank you for the information you provided us.
Thank you