Extreme Sports and Their Greatest Competitors

Extreme Sports and Their Greatest Competitors — page 3
ExTREME SPORTS AND THEIR GREATEST COMPETITORS have become enormously popular Some of the sports featured in the early X Games have been added to the Summer and Winter Olympic Games But neither the X Games nor the Olympics encompass all of the sports that are considered extreme Most everyone would agree that skydiving from a height of 24 miles 39 kilometers is also extreme So is spending a week exploring a pitch black cave 5 000 feet 1 500 meters beneath the surface of the earth The definition of extreme sports is changing and expanding year by year Adventurous athletes constantly push the envelope They look for riskier challenges to conquer and more clever ways to conquer them Once they conquer them and their rivals copy and then exceed what the origi nators have done those feats become less extraordinary In time what once was push ing the envelope produces only yawns Waterskiing for example was viewed as a daredevil phenomenon when it was invented in 1922 Today the greatest hazard posed by waterskiing may be the fact that so many people are doing it congesting lakes Along with profiles of notable competi tors this book breaks down extreme sports