SECOND REPORT

SECOND REPORT:

·         DEFINITION:  

An extreme sport (also called freesport, action sport, and adventure sport) is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger. These activities often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and highly specialized gear or spectacular stunts.

The definition of an extreme sport is not exact — for example, although studies show that road cycling ranks as the sport with the highest number of injuries; it is not considered an extreme sport because it is not counter-cultural. The term's origin is also unclear, but it gained popularity in the 1990s when it was picked up by marketing companies to promote the X Games.

In a traditional sporting event, athletes compete against each other under controlled circumstances. While it is possible to create a controlled sporting event such as X Games, there are environmental variables that cannot be held constant for all athletes. Examples include changing snow conditions for snowboarders, rock and ice quality for climbers, and wave height and shape for surfers.

·         HISTORY:

The origin of the divergence of the term "extreme sports" from "sports" may date to the 1950’s in the appearance of a phrase usually, but wrongly, attributed to Ernest Hemingway. The phrase is

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

The implication of the phrase was that the word "sport" defined an activity in which one might be killed. The other activities being termed "games". The phrase may have been invented by either writer Barnaby Conrad or automotive author Ken Purdy.

In recent decades the term extreme sport was further promoted by X Games, a multi-sport event created and developed by ESPN. The first X Games (known as 1995 Extreme Games) were held in Newport, Providence, Mount Snow, and Vermont in the United States.

·         MOTIVATION:

A feature of such activities in the view of some is their alleged capacity to induce an adrenaline rush in participants. However, the medical view is that the rush or high associated with the activity is not due to adrenaline being released as a response to fear, but due to increased levels of dopamine, endorphins and serotonin because of the high level of physical exertion. Furthermore, a recent study suggests that the link to adrenaline and 'true' extreme sports is tentative. The study defined 'true' extreme sports as a leisure or recreation activity where the most likely outcome of a mismanaged accident or mistake was death. This definition was designed to separate the marketing hype from the activity.