What's so extreme about extreme sports?
Josie Appleton asks, What's so extreme about extreme sports?:
There is a new extreme sport born almost every week, each seemingly more bizarre and dangerous than the last. BASE-jumping involves parachuting off buildings and cliffs; extreme ironing (inexplicably) involves ironing mid-skydive, up a mountain or under water. Hang-gliding and skydiving have spawned heli-bungee and sky-flying; skateboarding has spawned street luge, or lying on a skateboard and going fast downhill. Buildering is free climbing up skyscrapers, popularised by the Frenchman Alain 'Spiderman' Robert; free running treats the city as one big gymnastics circuit. Then there are events such as the Verbier Extreme, which challenges snowboarders to find the most daring way of descending a mountain.
Extreme sports — also known as lifestyle sports — have roots in 1960s countercultural movements, and have been growing since the late 1980s. Research by American Sports Data found that new-style sports such as snowboarding and paintballing have increased at the expense of traditional sports. Snowboarding was up by 30 per cent between 1998 and 2004 (7.1million people tried it at least once in 2004), while paintballing increased by 63 per cent in the same period (to 9.6million participants), and artificial wall climbing was up by 63 per cent (to 7.7million). By contrast, the number of baseball players fell by 28 per cent between 1987 and 2000, declining to 10.9million players (though most of these would be regular players, whereas most paintballers would be one-offs). Softball and volleyball fell by 37 per cent and 36 per cent in the same period (1).
Given the high-adrenaline image, it's unsurprising that male 15- to 24-year-olds are the prime market. In the UK, Mintel found that 22.7 per cent of 11- to 19-year-olds participated in BMX/mountain biking and 27. 5 per cent did skateboarding (2). But these sports attract a wide variety of participants. BASE jumpers include thirty- and fortysomething solicitors and accountants; and the new free running training academy in east London attracts 80 people a session, including everybody from kids to the middle aged.
But it isn't really the danger factor that marks out extreme sports. According to Nicholas Heyworth from Sports England, many are less dangerous than traditional 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'. Heyworth notes that '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'. A helicopter packed with medical equipment tracks participants in the Verbier Extreme.
Improvements in equipment allow the reduction in risk and pain. In the 1960s, skydiving was done by penniless daredevils using surplus US airforce chutes. One veteran recalls: 'It hurt like hell and you drifted mercilessly at the will of the wind until you crashed to the ground and it hurt like hell again.' (3) Now, he says, there are 'high-income jumpers who not only make eight jumps a day, but pay someone to pack their parachutes'. 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.'
