ST. PAUL, Minn. — Driving around St. Paul the past two weeks, it's hard not to notice the construction around the Cathedral.
All of the scaffolding and ramps aren't part of a cathedral refurbishing. They are in place for this week's Red Bull Crashed Ice, Ice Cross Downhill World Championships event in St. Paul. For the second straight year and the second time ever, the Red Bull Crashed Ice returns to St. Paul on the grounds of the cathedral.
Greeting over 200 competitors is a starting ramp that is over 48 feet tall and a course that is over 400 meters in length for a group of athletes that range from former hockey players, to downhill skiers, mountain bikers and winter extreme sports enthusiasts, including several native Minnesotans.
"It's great to come back to St. Paul and have all the friends and family come out and support and watch," said Cameron Naasz, one of the sport's top-ranked racers who is from Lakeville.
The event, which wraps up with Saturday's finals, is one of five stops on the championships' tour that includes two stops in Canada and one each in Switzerland and the Netherlands. St. Paul features a track that is considered the most technical the athletes will face on the tour. Over 80,000 people were in attendances for the event last year and more are expected this time around.
"What stuck out to me here, even on Friday night, which most other stops don't get that many people out, maybe 10,000 people; we had over 40,000 out here on Friday last year," said U.S. coach Charlie Wasley, who is from Edina and played hockey at the University of Minnesota. "It's really cool to see the city of St. Paul embrace it, and it made sense that they would being the state of hockey and with such a love for hockey in this area of the country. It's great to see."
The 48-foot tall starting ramp is 14 feet taller than last year. The course took 20 days to build and 25,000 gallons of water were used.
Beginning with the preliminaries on Thursday and Friday, racers participate in time trials running the course four at a time. The national shootout was held Thursday and the top 32 racers advance to the Friday's elimination round against the 33rd through 64th-ranked international races. The top 32 international skaters automatically advance to Saturday's finals.
The fastest times continue to advance until the championship race in which the finals are decided in a head to head race of four skaters. Racers can reach up to 40 miles per hour.
Naasz is the highest ranked American after placing second in the first stop of the 2012-13 season at Niagara Falls, the first U.S. athlete to finish in the top three. During Thursday's time trials, former University of Minnesota hockey player Brian Schack was the fastest qualifier out of the 100 American athletes, finishing the 400-meter course that ends near the Mississippi River in 40.81 seconds.
The event is free and open to the public, with Saturday's finals starting at 6:30 p.m. To receive entrance into the "Crash Zone" with a clearer view of the race, tickets cost $10 on Saturday. The area is free on Friday. More information can be found here.
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