Nowadays, a new kind of sport is attracting a new breed of players. These athletes don’t belong to a team, they don’t wear a uniform, and they often compete against no one but themselves. The sports they play are dangerous, crazy, and even death-defying. Welcome to the world of extreme sports. Extreme sports have a relatively short history and became popular only in the 1980s. They include snowboarding, skateboarding, bungee jumping, BASE jumping, indoor climbing, bouldering, and BMX, as well as many more. These sports are called "extreme" because they often combine speed, height, danger, and difficult stunts.
The rise of extreme sports signals a change in modern attitudes toward sport. The individual is emphasized rather than the team, and players are bound not by rules, but only by the limits of safety. Traditional Western sports, like soccer or hockey, are played in teams with clear sets of rules and regular matches. Extreme sports, on the other hand, are all about individual effort and accomplishment. The athletes push themselves to conquer their fears and challenge the limits of skill and daring. Even though extreme sports involve pushing against limits, safety is always a priority. Rugby, a type of football, may in fact be more dangerous than many extreme sports because most rugby players do not wear protective clothing. In comparison, participants in extreme sports wear pads, helmets, and other protective gear. Most participants in extreme sports are young men, but women are participating more and more and getting recognized for their skill and achievements.
Snowboarding is a winter extreme sport. Snowboarders strap one boot to a wide board and, balancing on their snowboard, slide down snow-covered slopes. Snowboarding is similar to surfing and skateboarding. Snowboards were first made in 1977, but only recently have snowboarders been accepted on mountains that until now have been dedicated to skiing. Like skiers, snowboarders travel down mountain slopes, but a big part of the sport is also learning and perfecting jumps, stunts, and tricks. Snowboarding hills often include jump ramps and a "halfpipe," which is formed by two long, curved ramps that face each other. Boarders jump off the ramps and the top edges of the halfpipe, performing tricks while they fly through the air. At the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, snowboarding was the first extreme sport to become part of the Olympics. Competitors jumped into the air as they snowboarded down the halfpipe. They were judged on how high they flew, how many spins and stunts they did, and their overall performance.
Skateboarding is one of the oldest extreme sports. It was originally called "sidewalk surfing," and skateboards were first commercially produced in the 1960s. The first skateboards were very narrow, flimsy, and unstable─if you ran over a pebble, the skateboard would stop!─and they weren’t too popular.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that skateboard design evolved and skateboards became wider and easier to ride. Skateboarding took off among teenagers and young people, and tricks like the "ollie" were invented. Skateboarders perform an ollie by kicking one end of their board down just as they jump into the air. The board bounces into the air with the rider, allowing the rider to jump over objects as he or she rolls along. Nowadays, "skaters" form a unique subculture with distinctive clothes, music, and hairstyles.
In the extreme sport of bungee jumping, people jump off very high places with a piece of elastic cord tied to their bodies. Bungee jumpers fall almost to the ground, stretching the cord until it snaps back. Then they fly back up through the air. In the 1950s, filmmaker Richard Attenborough filmed native tribesmen in Vanuatu jumping from tall wooden platforms with vines tied to their ankles. This footage inspired an Englishman, Chris Baker, to copy the stunt with elastic, and in 1979 bungee jumping was born. Since the mid 1980s, bungee jumpers have leapt off bridges, cliffs, cranes, and tall buildings, including the Eiffel Tower. In the movie Golden Eye, James Bond bungee jumps off a tall dam. Over a million bungee jumps have been done worldwide, but falling dizzying heights attached only to an elastic cord will never be a sport for the faint-hearted!
BASE jumping has perhaps received the most media attention of all extreme sports because of its daring nature and the not infrequent deaths resulting from it. BASE jumping is very similar to skydiving, except that BASE jumpers jump off a fixed object like a bridge or a tall building instead of out of an airplane. Their parachutes must open quickly and they must land in a very small area. The vast majority of BASE jumpers are experienced skydivers, but the sport still reports many injuries and deaths every year. One difficulty BASE jumpers face is finding places to jump off, because many building owners are reluctant to give permission for people to parachute off their buildings. At only one place in the world─the Perrine Memorial Bridge in Idaho─can BASE jumpers jump legally every day of the year. On Bridge Day, held once a year at this bridge, over eight hundred BASE jumps are made in just over six hours!
Rock climbing has become such a popular extreme sport that now you can do it almost anywhere. You can climb outdoor rock faces, mountains, and cliffs, but you can also climb in the city on climbing walls in indoor climbing gyms! A climbing wall is a fake cliff specially designed for indoor climbing, with grips for climber’s hands and feet and special protective mats on the floor at the base of the wall. Bouldering is a kind of rock climbing in which the athletes climb large boulders or rock faces without a rope. In bouldering, figuring out the best climbing route, problem-solving, and technical skills are more important than strength and endurance because the climb is often short. But it’s usually interesting─just like the boulders themselves!
And, finally, there’s the extreme sport of BMX, which involves racing and performing stunts on a kind of bicycle called "BMX." BMX is thought to have started in the 1970s when riders modified their bicycles to make them more exciting. The modified bikes had tougher tires and stronger frames, which allowed riders to race on dirt tracks, jump in the air, and even balance and spin on their bikes. BMX racing is popular among younger children and teenagers because all they need to compete is a bike, some knee and arm pads, and a good bike helmet. BMX freestyle, in which the riders perform tricks and stunts, will be an official sport at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
As more and more people become extreme sports enthusiasts, the way we think of sport is changing. Players participate in order to test themselves and challenge their physical abilities or to experience a new, exciting thrill. Some critics argue that corporate marketing has ruined the spirit of extreme sports by turning it into corporate slogans, such as "live life to the max" (Pepsi) and "just do it" (Nike). But while extreme sports may be the hot new trend in advertising, the values of extreme sports─practice, perseverance, risk, safety, and fun─make them just as challenging and thrilling as ever!