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Extremely… spectacular!
Sharpen
your blades, Red Bull Crashed Ice is back. A combination of downhill skiing,
hockey and boardercross, Red Bull Crashed Ice will return to the historic
district of Old Québec on January 24, 2009. Last year, as the city began to celebrate its
400th anniversary, over 85,000 screaming fans lined the cobblestone
streets as they watched 100 participants soar down the 550m ice-track. NEW THIS
YEAR: 20 women will also be racing to the finish line!
The one-of-a-kind 550m (with 56m vertical) urban ice track will wind and dive
its way through the city’s stunning landscape. However there will be no time for
the competitors to stop and taste the tire d'érable (snow taffy), as they’ll
have to navigate the course’s massive vertical drops, razor-sharp turns, jumps
and steps, all while doing speeds of up to 50 km/hr. If that’s not enough of a
rush, they’ll also have a crazy live audience cheering them on.
Hard to imagine?
Click to
view a short clip.
But how are these warriors of ice determined? This is how it goes down (literally!):
consecutive heats of four skaters race head-to-head in a double elimination
bracket narrowing
the field down from the top 64 qualifiers to a final four in the men’s division
and from the top 16 qualifiers to the final four in the women’s division. But
it’s not just bragging rights up for grabs, the top four finishers in both the
mens’ and womens’ divisions will be skating away with a share of the prize purse
totalling $10,000 for both the men’s and women’s divisions.
Since Quebec produces some of the world's best hockey players, its capital city
is a fitting return location for Red Bull Crashed Ice. Already, hundreds of
thousands of people from around the world have witnessed the action-packed new
sport of ice-cross downhill in cities with rich hockey roots, including its
debut in Stockholm, Sweden (2000), Klagenfurt, Austria (2001), Duluth,
Minnesota, USA (2003, 2004), Moscow, Russia (2004), Prague, Czech Republic
(2005), Helsinki, Finland (2007), Davos, Switzerland (2008), along with its exciting third annual Canadian
showing last year in
Québec City.
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CALENDAR
