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Red Bull Rampage revives an iconic venue for 2024
The men will compete at the 2018/2019 site, the biggest and steepest of all the past venues, and the women will be adjacent to the men’s on a new course. Learn more about what makes this zone unique.
Amid a contest field of the best freeride athletes in the world, one of the stars at Red Bull Rampage is the venue itself. Unlike most sporting competitions, where athletes duke it out in stadiums, fields or pre-built courses, the sprawling desert mesas of Virgin, Utah comprise the course of the event. Riders will descend into this unforgiving environment, navigate exposure, soar over cliffs and fly through near-vertical chutes in hopes of wowing the judges with lines they designed and crafted from the ground up. No two venues are alike, and each course has its unique character in the form of canyons, boulders and exposed drop offs.
Szymon Godziek competes at Red Bull Rampage 2018 in Virgin, Utah
© Garth Milan/Red Bull Content Pool
For the 2024 event, the men will compete at the 2018/19 site, which previously hosted two memorable Red Bull Rampage competitions. It is the steepest and tallest of all the previous venues, adding 150ft (46m) of vertical to the start. The lines are much more fall line, precipitously dropping from the summit to the base. For the inaugural women’s event, the women will compete at a new site to the left of the 2018/19 venue, working with a fresh canvas to build their lines. Their venue is the first new competition site introduced since 2018.
Brendan Fairclough at Red Bull Rampage 2019 in Virgin, Utah
© Paris Gore/Red Bull Content Pool
The 2018/19 course had many fan-favourite features that became part of the contest's lore. This venue was uniquely covered with colossal boulders and a few athletes saw these rocks as an opportunity rather than an obstacle to avoid.
Brendan Fairclough famously hit a rock drop he nicknamed 'Dwayne Johnson'. The on-off feature sent him over a massive drop with a landing that had no room for error. His line also featured an iconic 50ft (15m) canyon gap and a precipitous chute he nicknamed 'The Crack'.
Brandon Semenuk also craftily used a boulder in his 2019 winning line. The four-time champion created a unique on-off feature with a giant boulder, which fed him into the steepest part of his run: a technical double drop. Another standout from his line was a lilypad on-off in the middle of a vast cliff drop, which, during his final 2019 run, he linked together with a flat-drop backflip. Top to bottom, Semenuk’s line felt plucked from one of his trademark film projects.
4 min
Brandon Semenuk’s winning run
Watch Brandon Semenuk’s winning performance at Red Bull Rampage 2019.
One common denominator at all Red Bull Rampage venues is cliffs. There’s no shortage of them. At the 2018/19 site, The 'Price is Right' drop was a stand-out feature for its many take-offs from its cliffside, utilised by riders like Syzmon Godziek, Kyle Strait, Cam Zink, Tom Van Steenbergen and Tyler McCaul. Kyle Strait’s take-off on the left side of the drop sent him 69ft (21m) from the take-off to the landing, making it one of the most daunting drops at the venue. Another notable drop is the towering 55ft (17m) cliff near the bottom of the course, initially hit by Kurt Sorge, Ethan Nell, Adolf Silva and Tom Van Steenbergen. Steenbergen backflipped it both in 2018 and 2019, earning him the Best Trick Award in 2018 and a 3rd-place finish in 2019.
4 min
Tom Van Steenbergen’s 3rd-place run
Watch the run from Tom Van Steenbergen that sealed the third podium place at Red Bull Rampage 2019.
It's common for riders to revisit their old lines when returning to a previous site. With 14 of the 18 men who have competed here before, we'll surely see some familiar features integrated and reworked into this year’s competition. However, every Red Bull Rampage competition is distinctly its own, and both the men and women are sure to put on a show and progress the sport.
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Visit Red Bull Rampage's event page for further updates on the event schedule, riders and venue.
