WHAT'S SO EXTREME ABOUT EXTREME SPORTS?
There is a lot of PR puff behind the idea that new sports challenge our safety-first, shrink-wrapped world.
According to the ads, extreme sports are an antidote to our safety-first, shrink-wrapped world. They offer the opportunity to carve your own path and find out where your limits lie.
There is a new extreme sport born almost every week, each seemingly more bizarre and dangerous than the last:
BASE-jumping, BMX, motocross, mountain and ice-climbing, sky surfing, paintbaling, adventure racing, extreme ironing (inexplicably) involves ironing, up a mountain or under water. Hang-gliding and skydiving have spawned heli-bungee and sky-flying, skateboarding has spawned street luge, free running treats the city as one big gymnastics circuit.
Age
Extreme sports boast a more youthful demographic than others: enthusiasts typically fall within the categories of Gen-X and Generation Y. That includes those in their teens through those into their 30's.
Marketing
Commercials use spectacular imagery paired with fast-paced action and music to appeal to a younger demographic.
Intensity
While most sports have the capacity for intensity, extreme sports push the bounds with regards to speed, danger, physical exertion and amazing stunts. Extreme sports athletes have mastered the physical and mental skills needed to travel within the most inhospitable environments and even to defy the laws of gravity.
The myth of 'extreme' sports
Statistically, the most dangerous sport is horse riding. One 'aggressive skating' website warns you to 'Skate safe, because pain and death suck!', and another cliff jumping website is packed with disclaimers and warnings, such as 'don't drink and jump', 'never jump alone' and 'know your limits'.
Many extreme sports guys have got safety equipment up to their eyeballs, and a complete safety team. You would be lucky to get a cold sponge and a bucket of water at a Sunday league rugby match'.
Improvements in equipment allow the reduction in risk and pain. Even the most extreme of extreme sport pales into comparison beside the exploits of the early climbers and explorers, for whom the risks were great and the outcomes unknown. The advert for Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914-17 Trans-Antarctic expedition read: 'Men wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.'
Much of the hype about extreme sports comes not from the participants, but from the industry that surrounds it. Extreme sport goods - including TV programmes, graffiti art, design, drinks, and clothing - are a bigger business than the sports themselves.
Flexibility
How a free runner tackles the urban landscape is up to him. There are some established moves - a cat jump, speed vault, a palm spin, and so on - but you are always free to invent your own. This contrasts with sports such as gymnastics, when athletes have a certain time to perform, a set piece of equipment and a limited series of moves.
Challenging authority
Extreme sports claim to be confronting authority. Rather than work within leagues and sporting bodies, participants say that they are doing it for themselves. Bandit canoeing goes down forbidden waterways, and off-piste snowboarding and skateboarding crash off set tracks. The only rules are those tacitly agreed by participants.
Character-forming
For some, lifestyle sports can be character developing. Once boys were sent out to freezing football and rugby fields to make men of them; now they might assault a half-pipe instead. They go at a jump again and again, falling off and picking themselves up until they can finally do it. In this way, you bear the consequences of your actions.
Face Your Fears
Extreme sports can also enable you to confront fears. Some free runners are scared of heights, yet will perform complicated leaps between high buildings. They still their minds before the jump, overcome the part of them that wants to balk. Ez argues that free running 'requires discipline to do it properly, which is transferred to other aspects of life'. One young BASE-jumper says: 'It's the way to refresh things, to keep the mind awake. You have plenty of time to think about yourself, the mountain you stand on, your life, people you meet, things you're doing.'