Extreme Sports Facts

Check out our range of extreme sports facts.

Learn about the summer and winter X Games, different types of extreme sports, the surfaces and environments such as water, land, snow and air, as well as lots more interesting facts and information.

• Extreme sports, sometimes called action sports or adventure sports, do not have an exact definition but are generally considered to be activities that are seen as having a high level of potential danger.

• Extreme sports often involve high speeds, dangerous heights, the requirement for a high level of specialist technical skill, and highly specialized gear or equipment.

• During the 1990's extreme sports quickly became popular especially after the introduction of ESPN's X Games and dedicated extreme sport channels.

• Extreme sports tend to be popular among the ages of 15 - 35 years and usually involve less team aspects than traditional sports.

• Success in extreme sports usually involves judging panels scoring athletes based on visual and technical criteria and completion of a 'trick'.

• Height based extreme sports include Bungee jumping, skydiving, BASE jumping, paragliding and hang gliding.

• Water based extreme sports include scuba diving, windsurfing, kitesurfing, wakeboarding surfing, whitewater kayaking and rafting.

• Wheel based extreme sports include BMX, skateboarding, mountain biking, inline skating, rally car and motocross.

• Winter based extreme sports include skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobile.

• Cliff and cave based extreme sports include rock climbing, ice climbing, caving, free diving, mountaineering and cave diving.

• The X Games are an annual extreme sports event, organized by the U.S. sports broadcaster ESPN. Participants compete to win gold, silver, and bronze medals along with prize money.

• The first Summer X Games were held in 1995 in Newport, Rhode Island. The first Winter X Games were held in 1997 at Mountain Resort, Big Bear Lake, California.

• X Games are typically held in the USA. The winter games are held in January or February and the summer games are usually held in August.

• X Games have also been held in Asia since 1998 and Europe since 2010.

• The X Games competitions often makes heroes of those athletes who are talented and brave enough to pull of a new and exciting 'trick' such as Tony Hawk's 900 in skateboarding, Travis Pastrana's double backflip in freestyle motocross, Heath Frisby's first snowmobile front flip or snowboarder Torstein Horgmo's triple flip.