Extreme Sport of Crashed Ice, Red Bull invents a sport
Over the years, Red Bull, the massive energy drink company, has been very prominent in many different types of sports. The company is especially prominent in the more extreme sports out there such as BASE jumping and air racing, just to name a few.
Red Bull also sponsors a Formula 1 team as well as a football team in MLS in America. But in early 2000, executives at the company’s headquarters heard a proposal for a new sport and they decided to execute the idea. With that an energy drink became the
first to actually invent an extreme sport.
That sport was called Crashed Ice and over the next ten years became a very popular winter sport.
In 2000, managers and executives at the Red Bull headquarters in Austria were hearing ideas for new sports. The company already sponsored a large number of sports and had found a novel way to advertise and market their products to their consumers.
Red Bull was a brand that was associated with energy, extreme sports, fun, and living life on the edge. In every way it was not a normal canned drink, it tasted very different from other drinks, it came in a long slender can, it contained caffeine and taurine
for energy and it was not carbonated.
So the marketing strategy that it was going to pursue was not going to be normal either.
Those managers heard an idea, which instantly sparked their interest. A young executive of the company had seen a sport taking place where three or four competitors skated down a slope and had to jump over obstacles and do stunts before reaching the bottom.
The senior executives thought the idea had potential and decided to pursue it further. The sport the company effectively then came up with was called Crashed Ice and it combined elements of downhill skiing and ice hockey.
Basically four contestants, who were wearing ice hockey outfits, would line up at the top of a slope and race down to the finish line. The first one down the slope would win but they had to overcome obstacles and jump over hurdles along the way.
Sweden was the first venue of the inaugural Crashed Ice event in the year 2000. It was the first time that anyone had seen the new sport and they really enjoyed it. That first year the new sport gained a small but loyal following and this showed the company
that it had the potential to become a yearly event.
The winner that first year was a Swedish downhill skater named Jasper Felder. He was so dominant that he held the title until 2005. He even managed to make a comeback and win the 2009 competition, which was held in Switzerland. In total he has won the event
a record 6 times.
Since 2007, the sport has been split into two separate divisions, one which is held in Quebec, Canada and the other is held in a European city.
In 2007 the other contest was held in Helsinki and both events were won by Kevin Olsen. The sport was split into two divisions because it had grown much larger than first anticipated and it was split into two hemispheres.
In both of the divisions, competitors compete in regional finals and during each race the first and second place winners advance to the next round. Then national finals are held and then international finals in Canada and a European country.
The sport is a mix of ice hockey, downhill skiing and boardercross. The players have to make it down the hill first and there are numerous spills, falls, bumps and injuries as the players jostle for positions.
It is a very fast paced and exciting sport to watch, which endears fans to it. Ice hockey fans love it for its speed, violence, downhill skating, and skiing fans love it for its unique format.
Trust the quirky folks at Red Bull to come up and introduce something like Crashed Ice to the World. They are a very business savvy bunch in Austria and they keep proving it with record sales of their product and also the unique ways they use to market it
to consumers. Maybe in the future with the success of Crashed Ice, Red Bull will introduce many more sports for us to enjoy.
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