Photo Recap & Top Runs from Red Bull Rampage
For the 25th anniversary of Red Bull Rampage organizers returned to the original venue in Utah. For the first time in the event’s history, men and women dropped from the same start gate with more than 200m of vertical in the runs.
In the Women’s competition, Robin Goomes secured her historic three-peat with a second run that included a flat spin 360, a backflip off a massive step-down and a backflip cancan near the bottom, capping a performance that stunned the crowd and sealed her place as the only rider to win three Red Bull Rampage titles in a row.
Back home in New Zealand, Goomes built a training compound to perfect a backflip step-down to muscle memory, but in a surprise twist, she aced a flat spin 360 on her upper jump, a first for the women’s field. She said, “Winning once was something I never thought I could accomplish, so winning this third title is a dream. The pressure seems to just keep building. All I knew this year is that if I wanted to do it again, I’d have to push harder than I’ve ever done and be better than I have been previously. So that was the goal coming in, just work hard for it.”
Hannah Bergemann took second place for the second year in a row, finishing just 0.75 points off the win after an opening run that featured a backflip near the top of the course, a raw chute section, a massive drop and a suicide no-hander at the finish. She answered with another solid run that cleaned the backflip, attacked the technical sections and threw a huge suicide no-hander before rolling into the finish. Bergemann: “Months and months, years of prep on the bike, getting everything ready, then building for ten days and practicing… by the time you get to comp day, you just want to do your thing. And if I accomplish the goal I set out to do, I’m happy.”
Kirsten Van Horne completed the podium in third with a score of 86.50, delivering a calm, precise and clean top-to-bottom run that was rewarded by the judging panel. Her line emphasised flow and control through the steepest sections of the venue, linking technical chutes and exposed ridgelines without major mistakes.
Unfortunately, weather impacted the Men’s Finals with high winds forcing organizers to cancel the event after a few runs were completed. Those runs were huge, the sends were big and the crowd enjoyed the show.
Importantly, despite a few big crashes and trips to the medics, nobody suffered any serious injuries – which is a huge positive for an event that perhaps made headlines for all the wrong reasons, in the last few editions. The return to a less groomed, more raw style of terrain was a good call. //
| IMAGES: Red Bull |