Learn how Seb Toots is putting his spin on a Red Bull Ibiza Royale obstacle

A new obstacle race is making its debut from April 11 to 14 this year, and it’s open to everybody. In Red Bull Ibiza Royale, two-person teams from around the world will take on challenging and outrageous obstacles as they run, jump and slide to the top of the historic castle that crowns Ibiza, Spain – a bucket-list destination in the Mediterranean sunshine. Each obstacle is designed by an athlete or content creator known for innovation, and they all let their minds run free to dream up features that are fun and entirely unique.

Pushing the progression of snowboarding while earning titles across the Winter Olympics, X Games and FIS World Cup events, Seb Toots has also created jaw-dropping obstacle runs in the snow. And now that the application window is open for Red Bull Ibiza Royale, he can reveal a whole new creative project.

The Canadian was asked to personally design one of the nine obstacles that teams from 50 countries will face as they run, jump and slide their way to the top of Ibiza Castle in sunny Spain. We caught up with him to find out more.

You’ve worked on building features for yourself. Have you ever designed something to challenge somebody else?

Sébastien Toutant: No, this is a first for me. I’ve helped to design snowparks, but I’ve never designed something that I’m not competing on or using myself.

That said, is this obstacle informed more by your side experiences doing parkour and basketball trick shots, rather than snowboarding?

I think maybe they all came into play. Snowboarding is what inspired me to do parkour and trick shots in the first place, because it has no rules – you can really use your creativity when you’re out there in the snow.

What kind of competitor did you have in mind when you came up with your obstacle?

In this event, you don’t have to be a professional athlete. Some teams will be more athletic and have more experience than others, but you just need to be fit enough to be able to run, to stabilise yourself on different features, and to react and adjust to what’s in front of you. So hopefully a lot of different people will sign up, and I wanted to create something that would be challenging, but not too hard.

To design your obstacle, you attended a workshop with the event’s other creators. Can you talk about that?

I knew some of the obstacle designers from Instagram or seeing their videos, but being able to actually meet them and bounce ideas off each other was great. They’re all really good at what they do, so it was super inspiring. Sometimes my vision was kind of blocked, but talking to them opened me up. And in turn maybe I had an idea that wasn’t right for my obstacle, but it could help another person to bring out their ideas.

We got close. I feel like we got to know each other really quick, in a really short time.

What sparked your final concept?

The location. Even though I haven’t been to Ibiza – yet – of course I’ve heard that music is huge there, so I focused on that. If it had been a different location, my obstacle would have been totally different.

I also thought about where my obstacle is going to be in the flow of the race. We wanted to be sure that all nine obstacles in the racecourse are different and that each one brings a unique challenge.

Can you describe your obstacle, the Turning Tables?

The environment’s going to be like a party, hopefully even with a DJ playing. And basically my obstacle is going to be like a turntable – you know, with the spinning platter and an arm that you put down on the record to play the music. Except there’s more than one turning table to navigate.

How does that work?

I liked the idea of having to think as a team. So in the first part, there’s a bridge like a turntable arm, and your partner will use a rope to rotate the arm so that you can cross a gap. Then when you’re across, you’ll manoeuvre the arm for your partner. You want to be quick, but if either of you rushes and loses hold of the rope at the wrong moment, the arm goes back to where it started and you lose time.

Then in the second part, you have to thread your way across three tables that are spinning in different directions, clockwise and counter-clockwise. The trick is that they have vertical walls, and you can only jump from one to the next when the openings of the walls line up. You could probably run them all at once without stopping, but you’d have to time it perfectly.

If you could give just one tip on how to master your obstacle, what would it be?

I think it would be “use your partner to move fast.” If you go too fast, you’re going to miss something and you might end up losing some time. You need your partner, especially in the first step. So go fast, but be wise with your partner.

Anything else people should know?

A big part of this event is people coming together. It’s got the fun vibe, but it’s competitive, too. I think it’s going to be really cool, and I’m looking forward to it. This is definitely an event that I'd love to try!