Extreme Sports Info - Part A - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

http://extremefreestyle.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/list-of-extreme-sports/

http://www.outdoor-sport-leisure.net/extreme-sports.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_sport

Extreme sports (also called action sports, aggro sports, and adventure sports) is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger.  These activities often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and highly specialized gear.

The definition of an extreme sport is not exact and the origin of the term is unclear, but it gained popularity in the 1990s when it was picked up by marketing companies to promote the X Games and when the Extreme Sports Channel and Extreme.com launched.

While use of the term "extreme sport" has spread far and wide to describe a multitude of different activities, exactly which sports are considered 'extreme' is debatable. There are however several characteristics common to most extreme sports.  While not the exclusive domain of youth, extreme sports tend to have a younger-than-average target demographic. Extreme sports are rarely sanctioned by schools.  Extreme sports tend to be more solitary than traditional sports .  (Rafting and paintballing are notable exceptions, as they are done in teams.) In addition, beginning extreme athletes tend to work on their craft without the guidance of a coach (though some may hire a coach later).

Activities categorized by media as extreme sports differ from traditional sports due to the higher number of inherently uncontrollable variables. These environmental variables are frequently weather and terrain related, including wind, snow, water and mountains. Because these natural phenomena cannot be controlled, they inevitably affect the outcome of the given activity or event.

In a traditional sporting event, athletes compete against each other under controlled circumstances. While it is possible to create a controlled sporting event such as X Games, there are environmental variables that cannot be held constant for all athletes. Examples include changing snow conditions for snowboarders, rock and ice quality for climbers, and wave height and shape for surfers.

While traditional sporting judgment criteria may be adopted when assessing performance (distance, time, score, etc.), extreme sports performers are often evaluated on more subjective and aesthetic criteria.  This results in a tendency to reject unified judging methods, with different sports employing their own ideals and indeed having the ability to evolve their assessment standards with new trends or developments in the sports.

Classification:

While the exact definition and what is included as extreme sport is debatable, some attempted to make classifications for extreme sports.

One argument is that to qualify as an "extreme sport" both expression terms need to be fulfilled:

·         "sport": The participant has to dispose of considerable skill and/or physical ability to avoid poor execution of the activity;

·         "extreme": poor execution of the activity has to result in considerable risk of serious physical harm to the participant;

Along this definition, an activity such as bungee jumping may not qualify, as no skill or physical ability is required to execute a good jump (i.e. avoid poor execution). A passenger in a canyon jet boat ride will not qualify either, as the skill required pertains to the pilot, not the passengers. "Thrill seeking" might in these cases be a more suitable qualification than "extreme sport". Paintball does not seem to fulfill any of the two conditions.

Extreme sports may be subdivided into the 2 following groups:

Extreme Vehicle Sports:

These sports require the use of some kind of "vehicle" (a ski, parachute, wingsuit, surfboard, a motocross bike etc.). They can be further subdivided into gliding (over air, snow, ice or water) sports ("sports de glisse" in French) and rolling sports. Another subdivision can be made along motorized and non-motorized vehicle sports, resulting in the following matrix;

	Gliding	Rolling
Motorized	offshore racing, wakeboarding, waterskiing, air racing	F1, rallying, motocross
Non-Motorized	surfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, skiing, snowboarding, parachuting, wingsuit, sailing	skateboarding, mountainbiking, free-style biking

Extreme Non-Vehicle Sports:

No vehicle is required (free climbing, canyoning, ice climbing, parkour etc.)

History:

The origin of the divergence of the term "extreme sports" from "sports" may date to the 1950s in the appearance of a phrase usually, but wrongly, attributed to Ernest Hemingway.  The phrase is:

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

The implication of the phrase was that the word "sport" defined an activity in which one might be killed, the other activities being termed "games". The phrase may have been invented by either writer Barnaby Conrad or automotive author Ken Purdy.

The Dangerous Sports Club of Oxford University, England was founded by David Kirke, Chris Baker, Ed Hulton and Alan Weston. They first came to wide public attention by inventing modern day bungee jumping, by making the first modern jumps on 1 April 1979, from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England. They followed the Clifton Bridge effort with a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California (including the first female bungee jump by Jane Wilmot), and with a televised leap from the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge in Colorado, sponsored by and televised on the popular American television program That's Incredible!   Bungee jumping was treated as a novelty for a few years, then became a craze for young people, and is now an established industry for thrill seekers. The Club also pioneered a surrealist form of skiing, holding three events at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in which competitors were required to devise a sculpture mounted on skis and ride it down a mountain. The event reached its limits when the Club arrived in St. Moritz with a London double-decker bus, wanting to send it down the ski slopes, and the Swiss resort managers refused.

Other Club activities included expedition hang gliding from active volcanoes; the launching of giant (60 ft.) plastic spheres with pilots suspended in the centre (zorbing); microlight flying; and BASE jumping (in the early days of this sport).

In recent decades the term extreme sport was further promoted after the Extreme Sports Channel, Extreme.com launched and then the X Games, a multi-sport event, was created and developed by ESPN.  The first X Games (known as 1995 Extreme Games) were held in Newport, Providence, Mount Snow, and Vermont in the United States.  (more to follow)

Copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.