Travel
Trio from the US win Red Bull Can You Make It? 2024
It was the adventure of a lifetime as nearly 300 teams from 60 countries had only seven days to cross Europe, taking on unique challenges and trading cans of Red Bull for all their needs.
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On May 21, almost 300 three-person teams relinquished their cash, credit cards and personal phones before setting out from five starting points – Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest, Copenhagen and Milan – with the goal of reaching the finish in Berlin for Red Bull Can You Make It? within seven days. Bartering for necessities and facing fun and extraordinary challenges while vlogging their stories to the world, these trios proved that they could indeed make it; and among them all, the Gladiators team from the U.S. were crowned winners of the event.
Red Bull Can You Make It? 2024 winners -- Team Gladiators
© Sergio Penas / Red Bull Content Pool
We’re exhausted, inspired, filled with joy, filled with happiness – so many emotions.
Winning team members Weston Cadena, Jacob Mathiasmeier and David Greek, who originally met as students of Texas A&M University, said, “We’re exhausted, inspired, filled with joy, filled with happiness – so many emotions. When you’re traveling, you’re exposed to a whole new group of people who have world views that are so extraordinary. We visited eight countries in seven days and interacted with people who spoke many different languages. But simply smiling, and our body language, allowed us to communicate and make strong relationships. It feels amazing.”
Mathiasmeier added, "It's unbelievable, crazy and so beautiful how many stories that not only our team has, but every team in the competition. That's nearly 900 people from around the world."
Tips from the Gladiators for traveling light and fast
In Red Bull Can You Make It?, being first to the finish line isn’t the most important part of the competition – it’s the experiences along the way that matter most. Over 3,000 ambitious teams aged 18 and over applied for the 2024 edition by submitting a short video, from which the participant teams were selected.
The event then kicked off on May 21, and throughout, the teams used their wit, charm and a variety of strategies to exchange cans of Red Bull for everything they needed – food, a place to sleep, transportation to the next location – while taking on many other adventures. Though teams had to reach Berlin within the seven-day margin to be eligible for the win, their full scores were based on points earned through Checkpoint Challenges, Adventure Challenge tasks and their vlog posts.
"All you know is that you don’t know where you’re going to next and you need to figure that out," Greek recalled.
The Gladiators did have a philosophy: that they would take calculated risks. They also had a plan. They wore gladiator helmets to break the ice with strangers. And, realizing that all the teams would make a beeline from the starting point to transit hubs, they brought their skateboards.
"Right when we started, we skated as fast as we could to the main train station and we were the first one to barter for tickets,” Mathiasmeier described. But then the train was delayed for two and a half hours, eliminating their advantage. That’s where the risk-taking came in.
Participants at the start of Red Bull Can You Make It? 2024 in Barcelona
© Jacobo Medrano / Red Bull Content Pool
Mathiasmeier recalled, “We were like, ‘We’re not going to win if we go on this train. So the train pulls up… and instead we head straight to the airport.” There, they turned on the charm, and a few hours later they were speeding away on a flight.
"That was a moment that still affects me in my day-to-day life, inspires me and gets me going," said Greek. "Because, with those train tickets, we were in a position that every team wanted to be in, but we risked everything at the chance that we might be able to do something bigger."
It wasn’t always miraculous. Sometimes the team would arrive in a major capital – say, Paris – and it would seem like they would never find transport onward. Most nights they caught just two or three hours of sleep, snoozing on a bus, in a car or on a floor. But, in their eyes, giving up was never an option. And besides, there was so much to do.
Each team created their own path across Europe. The Checkpoint Challenges that they faced in various cities ranged from abseiling to surfing, learning a traditional alpine Schuhplattler dance and even recording music tracks. In all, there were 61 checkpoints, each with a challenge specific to the locality.
In-between checkpoints, the teams managed to complete almost 8000 Adventure Challenges that included the straightforward (trading cans for ice cream) as well as the more complex (gathering 20 people to scream their team name in public).
Over the course of the adventure, the teams collectively covered 597,000km – over one and a half times the distance to the moon – across 17 countries and shared their stories with the world which are available to check out here.
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