Shooting the Red Bull Crashed Ice event is always a challenge, especially this year in Munich, because they set up the fastest race track ever seen! The competitors were more than motivated and through adrenaline and action they made my photographic motivation constantly present.
Red Bull Crashed Ice was set to return to where the Ice Cross Downhill World Championship first began – Germany. For those who didn’t heard of it before, here is the short story: a hybrid version of ski cross but with ice skates instead of skis and instead of snowy slopes, an ice track that incorporates some of the best elements of freestyle skiing – jumps and gaps, twists and turns and extreme speeds often exceeding 50 km/h.
Crashed Ice is the name of the ice cross world tour, run and organized by Red Bull since 2001, pitting athletes who often have a lifelong background in related sports like ice hockey, against each other in adrenaline pumping races lasting barely more than 20 seconds, yet packing enough excitement and energy for a month.
Travelling from Moscow through Munich, to Quebec, each stop of the tour is an opportunity for racers to collect points that count to the final goal: the World Championship title.
Cameron Naasz of America blasted away from the starting gate and never looked back to win his second straight Red Bull Crashed Ice race of the 2015/16 season. In front of an enthusiastic crowd at Munich’s Olympic Park, Naasz was unstoppable on the 370-meter long track with its 45-meter vertical drop through all four knock-out rounds and widened his lead at the top of the Ice Cross Downhill World Championship.
In the women’s race, Jacqueline Legere of Canada won an incredible final.