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Three Otago students have beat out thousands of teams from all over the world after being selected to compete in a seven-day mission across Europe using only Red Bull as currency. Red Bull Can You Make It positions 100 teams from all over the world in London, Paris, Milan and Vienna with a case of 24 cans of Red Bull, giving them from 4 April until 5pm on 11 April to make it to Berlin.

Brother and sister, Chessie and Finn Henry, along with their friend Tish McNicol, are representing the University of Otago as “the Freedom Hunters” and are the only team from Australasia to be part of the 100 competing teams. Critic spoke with one of the Freedom Hunters, Chessie Henry, who said the trio made a split decision to enter one day out from entries closing, which involved a pretty “casual” one-minute submission video.

A week later, the trio received a call saying, “We’d been shortlisted as one of the teams,” and stating “that if we could confirm our passports, we were good to go,” said Henry. The following day, Red Bull rang to say the team had been officially selected and were off on an all expenses paid trip to Europe to compete.
Specifics on what is involved are scarce, with Henry saying, “apart from the fact that we are starting in London, we don’t know anything about [what the competition involves].” She said they would have “no money. No food. Just Red Bull.” However, Henry said they were “just really banking on people’s good will, [and] that they’ll find it funny or want to help us out.” She added, “for the most part, [we’re] just really excited.”

Despite the trio joking about it, Henry said they were all in training. “We’re trying to go for a run every day, especially if it’s going to be a sprint to the finish line.” Other preparations suggested included learning the haka “so we can be like ‘we’ll do the haka for you if you take us this far, or give us a bagel.’”

Henry said people could track the team’s progress in the lead up to the event online and on Facebook, and keep updated while they make their way to Berlin. It will undoubtedly be worth keeping an eye on the team who proclaim they’re “up for anything,” and that “there’s not much we couldn’t get with a Red Bull and a grin from Finn.”