What is Extreme Sports?
- The phrase "extreme sports" was evidently coined by ESPN when the network was planning the Extreme Games (now the X Games), which were first held in 1995.
Several of the sports that fall into the category, such as snowboarding, skateboarding, and street luge, have also been known as "outlaw sports" because they were banned in many areas for being too dangerous.
They have also been characterized as "alternative sports," in part because they are seen as alternatives to older, established sports, but also because many of the athletes adopted an alternative style, originally known as punk and later as grunge, opposed to the conspicuous consumption of the yuppie lifestyle.
In general, the extreme sports contain an element of danger, epitomized by daredevil acrobatic stunts performed while traveling at high speed. Many of them are new versions of older sports, made possible by technological changes or improvements in equipment. For example, BMX racing and mountain biking are both based on cycling, barefoot water skiing is an obvious derivative of traditional water skiing, and in-line skating is a form of roller skating.
For the most part, extreme sports originated as recreational activities for individuals, but often in a group context, with individual athletes showing off skills for the rest of the group members to imitate or emulate.
As they have become competitive, the extreme sports have been at least partly absorbed into the mainstream. Snowboarding was the first (and is still the only) extreme sport to become an Olympic event, but that could happen only after it was taken under the umbrella of the international governing body for skiing.
Similarly, BMX racing and mountain biking have been adopted as cycling disciplines and in-line skating falls under the jurisdiction of the international and national governing bodies for roller skating.
Some older, more traditional sports, such as freestyle skiing, skydiving, surfing, and water skiing, are sometimes considered extreme sports. In fact, the surfing counter-culture of the 1960s was very similar to the modern counter-culture of many extreme sports enthusiasts.
Done by Samuel Teo and Ehren Lai