An extreme sport is sometimes referred to as adventure sport and action sport and is categorized by activities that some view as having a large degree of inherent danger, and they may also be perceived as counter cultural. These activities typically involve spectacular stunts, highly specialized gear, and physical exertion at high levels, height, and speed.
Although some studies indicate that sports such as cycling is classified as a sport that encompasses the highest injury rate, this sport is not perceived as an extreme sport since it is not countercultural. For this reason the term “extreme sport” has no exact definition. This sport received a lot of popularity during the 1990s when it promoted the X Games after being picked up by marketing organizations.
There are a variety of common characteristics about sports that are considered extreme even though precisely which sports are actually perceived as extreme is still debatable. Rarely are extreme sports authorized in schools but these sports tend to have a very young target demographic.
The media often categorizes these sports differently than they do traditional sports because of the high amount of variables that cannot be controlled. Athletes that engage in extreme sports compete against other athletes and oftentimes competitions include environmental challenges and obstacles. Often, the environmental variables include mountains, water, snow, wind and related conditions.Athletes compete against one another in traditional sporting events that is supervised and controlled. This is often not the case with extreme sports because some variables are not able to be constant for each athlete.