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Usually when riders take to the air in a downhill race, they don’t need to worry about how high they’re going. But at the Red Bull Race Down low’s not just fast, it’s essential – get too much air and you’re liable to crack your bonce on the roof of the tunnel.
Tunnel? Yes, the Red Bull Race Down is, as far as we know, the only subterranean downhill race in the world, being held as it is in a disused salt mine 700m below what used to be East Germany and is now presumably just the east of Germany. But we digress. 16 men and eight women took part on the 1km course, laden with jumps and berms but largely unlit, in a constant temperature of 25C and humidity of an unbeatable 0%. The jumps were over diggers, lorries and other assorted mining hardware (no canaries in cages or Indiana Jones-style rail trucks as far as we know, though).
The racing employed a knock-out format, and at the end it was Anne-Caroline Chausson and Brian Lopes who took top spots. British interest was maintained by Steve Peat and Fionn Griffiths, both finishing fourth.
More details and pictures and stuff at www.redbullracedown.com.
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