Eleven teams from Japan, the USA, Alaska, Malaysia, Canada, Russia, Finland, Poland, the Philippines, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, and France competed in the first ice sculpture competition in Spain, within the framework of the I International Ice Festival in Torrejón Ardoz (Madrid), from November 11 to 18.

The candidates individually had a space of 5 m2 and 15 blocks of ice, weighing approximately 125 kg, to create ephemeral works of art around the theme, “Fantastic Creatures”, using tools such as chainsaws, chisels, or torches.

The jury, which assessed criteria such as precision, proportion, expression or the general impression of each piece, awarded the first prize to the Canadian team for the sculpture “Crossing the Second Dimension”, the second to the Malaysian-Philippines team for “Chimera” and the third to France-Poland for “Against reality”.

These were the teams that faced each other in the competition:

• Aaron Costic and Jim Duggan (USA)
• Kee Gawah (Malaysia) and Ross Baisas (Philippines)
• Mikhail Fedetov and Teymur Abdulgadiev (Russia)
• Samuel Girault (France) and Michal Mizula (Poland)
• Jere Nuppola and Juuso Partanen (Finland)
• Stanislaw Nowodworski and Aleksandra Fronc (Poland)
• Daniel Howell and Angelito Babán (USA)
• Miro Rismondo and Janez Dolsak (Slovenia)
• Marco Torrisi and Amelio Mazzella di Regnella (Italy)
• Verónica Bustamante (Spain) and Yohann Hasselbein (France)
• Jean-François Gaultier and Julien Dore (Montreal, Canada)

The competition also had the special participation of Junichi Nakamura, one of the best ice sculptors in the world who has been chosen for his particular work, his originality, and his ability to understand ice creations and its peculiarities, and who was accompanied by Shinichi Sawamura.