Laughing – and ironing – in the face of danger

We’ve all heard the term banded about by wannabe hipsters intent on seeming “down with da kids”. But what exactly are extreme sports? What makes them extreme? And why all the hype?

British University Snowsports Council (BUSC) chairman, Harry Quartermain, explains:

“Extreme Sports involve a higher than usual level of danger, they’re usually taken part in by individuals, not teams and generally marketed at a youthful demographic.”

Helpful, Harry, but what makes us actually enjoy putting ourselves in danger? Everyone’s familiar with fashionable terms like “adrenaline junkie” but is it all down to adrenaline? No, says Harry: “Extreme sports offer excitement and enjoyment from being outside as well as a lifestyle choice.”

And that’s a good point: lifestyle. With the extreme sports market being worth billions of pounds, how does the market achieve this success? Answer; by selling a lifestyle. (Quicksilver, one of the world’s most recognizable extreme sports brands, generated $2.362bn in revenue in 2006.)

Extreme or adventure sports have over the past decade or so have come to be considered cool and edgy and have therefore generated a lot of interest, particularly from younger people. This in turn gets the marketing machines drooling at the prospect of all that disposable income.

Clothing, footwear, equipment, computer games, DVDs, music… I could go on. They all make up the lifestyle built around sports like snowboarding, skiing, BMX, skating, surfing and wakeboarding. The idea is to appear as though you have just completed a monster black run in heavy snow, or have just popped a massive 900 out of a concrete half-pipe. This should result in you receiving kudos from your friends and loving from the guy/girl of your choice. It’s the new millennium’s version of slicked-back hair, leather jacket and Harley Davidson.

"The idea is to appear as though you have just completed a monster black run in heavy snow, or have just popped a massive 900 out of a concrete half-pipe."

The list of extreme sports is long and growing every day. You have the traditional mountain and water-based sports of climbing, mountaineering, skiing, snowboarding, windsurfing, waterskiing and surfing - still by far the most popular. But more recently BASE jumping has come to the fore. For the uninitiated, this involves launching yourself – and your trusty parachute – from Buildings, Antennae, Span (bridge or arch) or Earth (cliff or other natural formation) with the aim of opening said parachute early enough to ensure your safe arrival back on the ground.

The first recorded BASE jump was in 1783 when Louis-Sébastien Lenormand made the first parachute jump from the tower of the Montpellier observatory.

Jumps continued to take place sporadically, mainly as test jumps for parachutes, but it wasn’t until the late 1970s - when film-maker Carl Boenish pioneered the sport as a recreational activity - that it really took off (so to speak). Presumably he either was afraid of flying but wanted to skydive or he simply couldn’t afford to hire a plane. Boenish continued to develop the sport until his death in 1984. He lost his battle with gravity whilst performing a cliff jump in Norway.

Despite this and around 120 recorded deaths in the sport’s 30 year history, BASE jumping is thriving. Although most jumps are illegal due to lack of permission to use structures and landing zones, it has become one of the most exciting extreme sports.

Markedly less so is extreme ironing. Participants combine their favourite extreme sports with many people’s least favourite chore. www.extremeironing.com explains that the “semi-official sport” was invented in Leicester in 1997 when a rock climber decided to take his ironing pile with him on an expedition. Eleven years on and there are Extreme Ironing groups in the UK, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and Colorado, US.