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March 31st, 2006 - 01:08am
Red Bull Crashed Ice report
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Downhill skating rules!!!
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Victoria, BC;
Better late than never! Here's a little resume of my weekend in Quebec, where I participated on March 3rd, in one of the most incredible and original
competition ever; the Red Bull Crashed Ice. Those 4 days past in Quebec were so busy, there's even some of my friends I haven't had the chance to see !
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The old days at CGI (1999)
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March 1st
Thursday 4am my alarm clock went off... it reminded me the old days when I had to take a bus and a subway to get to downtown Montreal, when I used
to do the 6am shift at the CGI Customer Service Desk... aaaahhhh I don't miss those days! ;) After a quick breakfast I drove to
the airport and took the 6:30am flight to Toronto with 3 other Victoria athletes and Gillian from Red Bull.
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A 40 place bus for 8 people? Why not!
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Snow storm
Unfortunately, our flight to Quebec was cancelled due to a snow storm. After a little wait Gillian managed to find us a flight to Montreal, where we
landed at 8pm. Since no flights were available at this time of the night, Red Bull had to rent a bus and we finally arrived in Quebec at 3am!!!
Our arrival in the Capital was brutal! A freezing tempature of -30c with strond winds!!! Welcome to Quebec ostie!!!
Friday
After a short sleep at the Chateau Frontenac, we had a huge breakfast before the athlete meeting. Then, it was time to put our equipment on and
get some practice runs on the track. The weather was still terrible; it was windy, cold but the worst was the snow! It was hurting our eyes so bad,
when we were going down, specially at high speed. Fortunately, we were only practicing little portions of the track
Here's a little video I found on youtube, it will give you an idea of the conditions. Since
the track was covered in snow and the weather was too bad, the qualifications were postponed to Saturday morning. Back to the hotel room, I
did something I didn't have the chance to do in months: zap the channels on a TV! mouahahaa :) I then passed out at 9pm, god I was tired.
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Going down an outdoor ice track is a lot harder than it seems...
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Saturday
At 6:30am I had already my skates on and moments later I was on the track trying to get as many runs as possible before the qualifications. Going
down an outdoor ice track is a lot harder than it seems. The ice is not perfect like indoor ice rinks. You're kind of shaking the all time and
added to that, skating without a stick is pretty weird too! It's a lot harder to keep your balance. However, after a couple of runs, you forget
about those factors and you come at a point where you just wanna go faster. Jumping with skates, hitting doubles and take steep corners as fast as you
can is such a nice feeling! :)
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The ramp jump, which eventually cost me the race later during the evening.
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Qualifications
We had two time-trialed runs per athlete, fastest run counts. The top 130 will then be narrowed down to a field of 64 based on fastest time. My
plan was to do a safe and clean run on my first try and then give everything I can on the second one. However, I crashed during my first run, so
I had to changed my plan a little! hehe I was still sitting in the top 64, so I knew if I could do a clean run I would qualified and this is what
I've done. I managed to take the 43rd rank, less than 2 seconds from the first place. I wasn't really happy with this result, but still pretty
excited to take part in the finals. I knew everything could change at the race once we go four at the time chassing each others, so I was still
positive about my chances.
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Look at this crowd!!!!
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Race
I have no words to describe the atmosphere of Saturday night's race. I just couldn't believe it!
75 000 spectators massed around the course waiting for the big show... can you imagine how loud the crowd was when everyone was cheering and
yealing at the same time!?!?! The only way I could describe it, is during a NHL hockey game when the crowd goes nut when the local team scores. When
I got on the starting gate and saw all those people, I had adrenaline shivers. I was soooooo pumped, I felt like a soldier going to to war, nothing
could stop me.
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you get hit, pushed, you crash...
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First run
According to the medias, the heat I took part in was the most physical one. I crashed twice
and still managed to win! It's never over in this kind of competition, you get hit, pushed, you crash, you pass other racers, other racers pass you,
no matter what happen you still have to skate as fast as you can until you cross the finish line.
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I placed myself in an aerodynamic tuck position...
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Second run
I was sitting in second place at mid-race and since the first two athletes in each heat advance to
the next round, all I had to do was secure my position. But I was so pumped with all those thousands of people everywhere around the track cheering,
the camera flashes, the anouncers, the medias, that all I wanted to do is win another heat. So I placed myself in an aerodynamic tuck position and
gained a lot of speed on the stretch which take us down some stairs and I managed to take the first place, but only for a short moment though... I was
going way too fast and I litteraly flew off a ramp and I never made it on my two feet... I almost hit some spectators and crashed real hard on the
board. I then find out later that I broke my skate's blade in 2 pieces when landing this jump.
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The Victoria crew at the Red Bull after race party
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Overall
I still keep a great souvenir of this weekend. The Red Bull organisation was awesome too! Beside paying for
all of our expenses and treating us like Olympic athletes, the people who work there are super friendly and easy going. Everything was perfect! I hope I
can do this kind of competition again next year, it was the thrill of a lifetime!!!! :p Here are some videos of the weekend... enjoy! :)
2007 clip: http://www.redbullcrashedice.ca/fr/video.htm
Qualifications: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oIQbG4Le52w
Mix: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jAfGjwEn3C8
Mix: http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_XX6qa0CNU
Canal Vox: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5g6U34JdCtI&mode=related&search=
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