The premiere Riders Cup race of 2015/16 Ice Cross Downhill World Championship will take place in Austria's winter sport hotbed of Wagrain-Kleinarl from December 17-19 after the world's fastest sport on skates made its celebrated debut here last year. Austria's Marco Dallago, who won last year's race in front of a record-breaking crowd of 2,500 spectators, has once again worked hard designing and building the 310-meter long track on a ski slope that should be even more exciting than last year's 280-meter long track.
"We've improved the track so that the spectators will be able to see even more of the action this year," said Dallago, who is hoping to win 25 world championship points once again in Wagrain-Kleinarl -- the biggest Riders Cup event of the year. "We've added three jumps at the finish so there's going to be a lot of action and a lot of passing right in the finish area. There's going to be a lot of excitement there." Riders can either take the one-meter high bumps one at a time or catapult themselves into a risky 15-meter long jump over all three one-meter high bumps.
The Riders Cup was created as a new feeder event last season to open the sport to even more competitors in more locations and the atmosphere at last year's race in Austria was unbeatable. Organized by riders for riders, the Riders Cup is part of the Ice Cross Downhill World Championship alongside the four Red Bull Crashed Ice races, where winners earn 1,000 championship points. Whoever wins the most points from the three of the four Red Bull Crashed Ice events and from three of the six Riders Cup races will be crowned Ice Cross Downhill World Champion.
Dallago, who has become a full-time athlete and trains on average for more than two hours a day for the sport all year round, and nine volunteers from Austria, Germany and Poland have spent hundreds of hours designing and building the Wagrain race track filled with turns, bumps, jumps and other obstacles. The volunteers, who will be racing as well, have been testing out the track. The two fastest racers in each four-person heat advance to the next round. Dallago said that a record of 180 athletes have signed up for this year's Riders Cup race in Wagrain-Kleinarl, up from 115 last year. Applications will be accepted until Monday, December 14 with a limit of 220 participants. This year there will be eight women racing, up from five a year ago.
"The track this year is going to be a lot of fun for the riders and spectators," said Dallago, who has also been testing the track since finishing it with the volunteers last week. "It's a track in the middle of a ski slope so it's extremely fast and challenging. It's going to be a great race.
The excitement of last year's race will be hard to beat. Dallago came out on top in a cliff-hanger final against two of this year's hottest racers, Dean Moriarity, of Canada, and Miikka Jouhkimainen, from Finland. In a highly physically challenging final, Scott Croxall, of Canada, ended up in fourth place. Austria's Alice Zenz won the women's race.
Ice Cross Downhill World Championship 2015/16 race calendar:
November 27-28: Red Bull Crashed Ice Quebec City, QC, Canada
December 18-19: Riders Cup Wagrain-Kleinarl, Austria
January 08-09: Red Bull Crashed Ice Munich, Germany
January 15-16: Riders Cup Avoriaz, France
January 22-23. 16: Riders Cup Rautalampi, Finland
January 29-30: Red Bull Crashed Ice Jyväskylä-Laajis, Finland
February 5-6: Riders Cup Bathurst, NB, Canada
February 12-13:Riders Cup Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
February 19-20: Riders Cup Mont du Lac, WI, United States
February 26-27: Red Bull Crashed Ice Saint Paul, MN, United States