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Rebecca Rusch’s “Blood Road” wins Emmy Award

Cycling film documenting American's journey through Vietnam honoured

Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull Content Pool
Rebecca Rusch and Huyen Nguyen on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 2015. Image: Josh Letchworth / Red Bull Content Pool

American Ultra-endurance cyclist Rebecca Rusch’s documentary Blood Road won an Emmy Award on Monday.

Blood Road was awarded the honour for Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction during the News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony.

The 2017 documentary follows Rusch’s journey with Vietnamese riding partner, Huyen Nguyen, as they pedal 1,200 miles along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Traveling through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the pair’s destination is the site where Rusch’s father, a U.S. Air Force pilot in the Vietnam War, was shot down 40 years earlier.

In contrast to Rusch’s purely athletic achievements, Blood Road is a mountain bike movie following a journey into the intergenerational legacy of the Vietnam War.

Blood Road had its BC Premier earlier this year at the 2018 VIMFF.

Rebecca Rusch is an American author and ultra-endurance athlete. She is a three-time 24 Hour Solo Mountain Bike World Champion, in 2007, 2008 and 2009. She has won the Leadville 100 mountain bike marathon four times, as well as the Dirty Kanza 200 and other gravel races. In 2013, Rusch set the women’s record for mountain biking the Kokopelli Trail.

In 2014, Velo Press released Rusch to Glory, written by Rusch with Selene Yeager.

Blood Road currently available to stream, free on Red Bull TV Here. You can watch the trailer for the film below: