Watch the urban downhill race that takes place in a former cartel stronghold
Escobar's kingdom
Escobar's kingdom
We’ve seen some races in some crazy places but this one could top them all. The Adrenalina urban downhill race takes place in the Comuna 13 shanty town in Medellin – the former stronghold of Pablo Escobar.
Pablo Escobar was a notorious Colombian drug lord who became the wealthiest criminal in history worth over $30 billion. Escobar began his criminal empire in Medellin where he set up his first laboratory and later ran his empire. He was killed in the shanty town in 1993.
The one kilometre long race track takes in a number of steep staircases, narrow alleyways and at one point even goes through someone’s house.
The winner for the second year in a row was Filip Polc with a time of 1:32.326. Polc is the current urban downhill World Champion, a title he will be looking to defend at the final round of the City Downhill World Tour in Taxco, Mexico in two weeks’ time.
Polc said to HSB Noticias: “The urban downhill is fun because you can go through one side of the house or even inside houses. When we go quite fast people get excited and it’s easy to see why.”
Thankfully the locals don’t have to contend with climbing up and down this hill every day as there is a chairlift that goes over the slum.