Rogers Man Qualifies for Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship in St. Paul

Chris Barta of Rogers qualified Sunday to compete as one of the world's best ice cross downhill riders in the upcoming Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship in St. Paul.

Barta was the ninth-best out of the 60 top athletes who competed and qualified Sunday in one-on-one battles in time trials, and earned a spot on Team USA.

The sport is a world tour, and in the extreme sporting event, competitors downhill skate on a track of steep turns and high vertical drops.

Barta competed in front of thousands of people on Cathedral Hill in St. Paul, where his time was 22.74 seconds in a race down a 1,300-foot-long and 130-foot-high course.

The Jan. 26 championship will take place in St. Paul for the second year in a row as one of the five stops around the world.

Organizers are making changes to the championship track this year, which "promises to be one of the most difficult in the series," and the most technical track in history, according to the Red Bull Crashed Ice website.

At the event, 200 racers will go head-to-head as they skate on a downhill course of several jumps, turns and slides, down steep ice canals with obstacles. The competitors will race up to 40 miles per hour. The first two who cross the finish line advance to the next round.

More than 80,000 people were in the crowd at the 2012 competition.