This year, in the biggest ice cross downhill season ever, the traditional favorites in the Red Bull Crashed Ice team competition will be pushed to the limit by two impressive new constellations of top riders.
Canadian twins Dean and Dylan Moriarity shook up the individual ice cross downhill scene when they rocketed to the top five last season, and once the finale was over they made a decision that impacted the team competition as well: after skating on opposing teams, they wanted to skate together in 2015/16.
Dean had skated on a team called Prestige Worldwide that earned second place overall last season. Dylan had been with the fifth-place team, the Hill Bombers. The trick was figuring out the perfect foursome to include both of them.
What they worked out was that Dylan and his co-Hill Bomber Daniel Guolla of Canada would join forces with Dean and a Prestige Worldwide teammate from the USA named Reed Whiting to create a new team, Steal17.
"In the team competition you need to steal a minimum of 17 points from the other team to move on to the next round. So the name is a reminder of what we've got to do to win," explains Dylan Moriarity.
Meanwhile, the remaining two members of Prestige Worldwide, Tristan Dugerdil and Pacôme Schmitt of France, united with Derek Wedge and Kilian Braun of Switzerland to create the Alpine Rockets, a potentially powerful combo.
"It's the two best Swiss athletes and the two best French athletes," says Wedge, who brings experience that made him the individual World Champion in 2013 to helping his teammates develop tactics to dominate in the team competition, where six athletes battle on the track simultaneously. "I think that we really have a chance to accomplish something."
The rivalry among the re-formed teams will be one to watch, because, as Reed explains, "Having previously skated with the riders I'll now be skating against provides heightened competition. You're definitely going to be stepping it up another level when you're skating against old teammates."
Team strategies include planning out their order in the crowded start gates, identifying passing opportunities and, especially, selecting members with compatible strengths. Speed, power, reaction time, skating style, tactical skills and more come into play, and when a team gels, their results can be explosive.
Keeping a wary eye on the two new teams are the powerhouses who have won the team competition the past two years: Living the Dream, which took the title in 2015, features the reigning World Champion, Scott Croxall of Canada, and last year's second-place finisher Cameron Naasz of the USA. The Couch Garden Crew that won the previous season includes 2014 World Champion, Marco Dallago of Austria.
"Every time you do the team competition, you learn something about tactics, so I think it helps that our team has stayed together for three years," says Marco's teammate Luca Dallago.
Not to be left out are the women who will challenge the men in the team event on Friday evening. This year, with the first-ever women's individual World Championship on the line, they're more eager than ever to sharpen their skills.
Canada's Jacqueline Legere has joined up with three Canadian men on team S.P.E.E.D., while only one female only team competing in team competition – Finland's Salla Kyhala and Canada's Myriam Trepanier and Elaine Topolnisky – will contend as the Black Mambas.
"We don't have any advantages against the guys, but we want to do the team competition as practice, as an experience – it will give us the same atmosphere and setup as the individual competition," says Salla. "This is something we definitely want to do."
The team competition at the historic tenth anniversary of Red Bull Crashed Ice in Quebec City takes the ice on Friday, November 27, followed by women's and men's individual competition on Saturday.
Watch Red Bull Crashed Ice Quebec City LIVE!
Broadcast: We will stream the competition from Round of 32 LIVE on redbullcrashedice.com and on Red Bull TV. Red Bull TV is available on connected TVs, gaming consoles, mobile devices and more. For a full list of supported devices visit about.redbull.tv.
Note that the live webcast is geo-blocked in the US due to an exclusive broadcast deal with FOX Sports.
Start Times: 8.30pm EST on November 28 / 2.30am CET on November 29
Video on Demand: The VoD will be available in the US only after the event will be aired on Fox Sports 1 (Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 9:30 am EST). In all other countries, the VoD will be available a few minutes after the event on redbullcrashedice.com and Red Bull TV.
TV: The main event will also broadcast live on several TV stations around the globe. Please check local listings for details.
Live Results: For real-time results and standings visit redbullcrashedice.com/results