January 13th, day 1, and Canary Wharf was the setting for the 4th London Ice Sculpting Festival. 8 teams took part from all over Europe and Africa. The sculptures were, for the person that knows nothing about ice sculpting, very intricate and looked extremely difficult to do.
At the start, the teams thought about how they were going to carve the designs in to the huge blocks of ice that stood in front of them, scoring lines and taking little bits of ice away at a time, then slowly but surely the designs took shape. The sculpting started at 09:00hrs and finished at 19:00hrs. The sculptures were then wrapped up in big silver blankets and tucked away for the night.
Day 2 saw another early start and the teams carried on from where they left off. The African team were going well with their sculpture, when a supporting piece gave way and the whole thing collapsed and smashed in to pieces! Game over for them.
The day wore on and the weather got colder, and at 14:00hrs the clock stopped and the sculptures were finished. All of them extremely impressive.
Later on in the evening after the crowds had had a good look at the carvings, the winners were announced… “And the winners are…..Portugal”. They received £1000 prize money. Their sculpture of a snowboarder on one hand with quater-pipe behind him, was in my personal opinion, fantastic.
The UK team won the singles competition, receiving £500, and they also won the people’s choice, receiving £200. A nice little earner for them!
The teams that took part were:
Team UK – Piers Griffin & Jonathan Lloyd (Singles Competition Winners)
Sweden – Patrick Sorwing & Peter Sorwing
Portugal – Pedro Mira & Patrick Magee (Doubles Competition Winners)
Hungary – Akos Toth & Zsolt M. Toth
France – Julien Baron & Charles Filsjean
Bulgaria – Irina Korovkov & Ruslan Korovkov
Belgium – Frank De Conynck & Dries De Belie
Africa – Steve Armance & Mario Amegee
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- Blocks of ice stand ready to be sculpted into an array of different designs. Photograph By Lee Massey
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- One of the Swedish pair carves in to the block of ice with an electric chainsaw as the festival begins. Photograph By Lee Massey
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- The Hungarian team add detail to their snowboarding sculpture using the electric chainsaw. Photograph By Lee Massey
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- Hundreds of people came to Canary Wharf to view the amazing sculptures created over two days. Photograph By Lee Massey
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- The podium is filled with the sculptors after the final awards have been handed out. The Portuguese winners, Pedro Mira and Niall Magee, are seen here in the middle of the picture. Photograph By Lee Massey
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- Portuguese winners Pedro Mira, Left, and Niall Magee, Right, stand either side of their winning ice sculpture at the end of the London Ice Sculpting Festival 2012. Photograph By Lee Massey
Photographs of the event can be seen HERE
Lee Massey 