Extreme sports

Nowadays, there are many activities that can meet needs of risk-seekers. In my presentation today I am going to talk about extreme sports and explain how it can influence people’s lives.

I have chosen top-5 hazardous sports that can tickle your nerves even if I only describe and show what people do.

I decided to begin with the least risky activity from the list and it is paragliding. Paragliding is an extreme type of parachuting. Sportsman moves in the air using lightweight paraglider while his life literally depends on weather conditions. A gusty blast of wind can deprive person of the possibility to manage the paraglide at an altitude of several kilometers that obviously can lead to dire consequences.

The 4 kind of sports in my list is rodeo. A cowboy must stay in the saddle on the angry bull within 8 seconds. The cowboy should be a daredevil to do it: he can be injured by falling from a bull and by angry animal that wants to eliminate the hostile impact.

The next activity is surfing. It is on of the oldest extreme sports that strikes terror even now if we talk about surfing on the big waves. Just imagine, sportsman must surf the wave with a height of 6m 20cm (it is about 2 floors of ordinary building). The main hazard is sinking deeper than 15 meters where surfer can be disoriented. Ocean and weather conditions can pose this problem so the outcome can be unpredictable.

The second kind of sport is diving that seems not as dangerous as it supposed to be. In fact, there are some types of diving that jeopardize health and life of sportsmen, for instance, cave-diving and under-ice diving. A barrier over a diver create substantial risks of disorientation, pose an inability to get out of water fast. Verna van Shake set a record and was diving for 5 hours in Boesmansgat cave at a depth of 221 meters.

Let’s look now on the most terrifying extreme kind of sports – base-jumping. The first part of the word - BASE is abbreviation: B – building, A – antenna, S – span, E – earth. These words mean the places of starting for base jumpers, sportsmen jump from a small altitude with special parachutes. Base-jumping is a synonym of dicing with death – the slightest mistake can result in fatal outcome. Currently, 403 sportsmen put all their eggs in one basket and regrettably were defeated in fighting with evil fate.

In conclusion, I would like to say that extreme sports became an inalienable part of our culture. People will look for ways of adrenaline rush over and over and won’t stop. Almost all extreme sports are depended on not only sportsman’ qualification but the weather conditions too and, as for me, it is ridiculous to risk your life that way, not able to save yourself. Despite that fact, I consider that risk-seekers are very brave people that just follow the rule «Nothing gained, nothing ventured».