New Recreational Sports

Sports are one aspect in our culture that has always been cutting edge.  If we look back to our history, what was considered a new extreme sport then is considered a legitimate competitive sport today.  Athletes and young minds find sports not only a competitive activity, but also an expression of the youth in the society.  Most people will always imagine something new and invent them as a new sport.  Eventually it gains enthusiasts, professionals, and casual followers until it becomes a recognized sport.  Let us look at some of the new and weird sports that have made a mark in this global culture.

World Cyber Games:  Competitive Video Gaming At Its Finest

This current decade saw the tremendous growth of gaming consoles, game design, and the video game industry in general.  This evolved into a global gaming culture that is now recognized as a new extreme sport in more than 70 countries.  Competitive Video Gaming has become one of the most sought after new recreational sports in the last five years. 

The best players from around the world meet in the annual World Cyber Games (WCG).  This event was launched by International Cyber Marketing, a Korean company backed by Samsung and Microsoft, with the goal to market video games as competitive sports.  Like athletes and fans that recognize sports talent, many will attest to the fact that Korea has some of the elite players in the world, since they were one of the first countries that developed the gaming and the new sports technology that makes World Cyber Games possible.  The World Cyber Games bring the best players from different countries to battle it out just like the Olympics.

This new recreational sport draws more than one million visitors every year, which is an impressive number for a young sporting event.  Ironically, some players believe in exercise and physical fitness to compete in this sport.  Only a select number of games are considered competitive games.  These games include Warcraft III, Starcraft, Counterstrike, FIFA, and Need for Speed.  Recently Guitar Hero was added to the list of events.  The selection of games depends on the balance in game design and the large community that drives these video games.  With its strong interest from the youth, and the fascination of “real sports on PC,” cyber games are definitely here to stay.

Base Jumping

Many extreme sports involve jumping from high altitude and at high speeds.  The ultimate jump is skydiving, where a person jumps from a plane at an altitude greater than 2000 feet.  Skyboarding is a variant of skydiving where the jumper has a board attached to his feet, so he can make board tricks in the air while falling.  Skygliding is one of the new extreme sports where participants use a special aerodynamic suit to travel from one point to another while falling, compared to dropping straight down in skydiving.

One of the more radical extreme sports related to skydiving is Base Jumping.  BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth.  This jump employs a parachute or wingsuit to jump from altitudes less than 2000 feet with the parachute unopened.  To become a BASE jumper, you must jump from fixed objects. 

The first base jumpers were Carl Boenish and Jean Boenish along with Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield.  The first jump made in Yosemite National Park demonstrated how Base Jumping is different from other recreational sports.  During the eighties, all base jumps were made using standard parachutes, but new sports technology has developed specialized equipment specifically for this kind of low altitude jumping.

Many consider base jumping an "ultra-extreme" sport because it is significantly more dangerous than similar sports.  Unlike skydiving, low altitude jumping only spans six seconds at the most.  Thus, jumpers have less than three seconds to position themselves and open their parachutes.  In addition, these jumps are usually made from man-made structures where there are many people on the ground.  Base Jumping is one of the new and weird sports that has found its niche through the years.

Body Boarding

Body boarding is a form of human wave riding and a derivation from surfing.  This new extreme sport uses a smaller, rectangular board made of hydrodynamic foam.  Body Boarding is the fastest growing extreme sports in the world since this sport is easier to learn than similar activities like wakeboarding or surfing. 

A bodyboard is a short board made of foam core and protected by a plastic bottom.  The new sports technology behind the boards makes them lighter, flexible, and easier to control.  There are stronger bodyboards made of carbon and graphite for stronger waves.  The boards are also designed to absorb much of the surface pressure of the water, so bodyboards will have an easier time catching the waves.

Professional bodyboarding involves launching and landing tricks in the height of the wave from the simple spinning and reverse trick done near the wave pipe, to the more extreme jumping and aerial tricks that use the stronger waves as jump-off points.  The standard tricks for modern bodyboarding includes aerial spinner, reverse 720s, and air roll spins.  Advance bodyboarders also do tricks while in a drop-knee or crouching position, and standing up.  Modern bodyboarders place emphasis on sticking to the pipe of the wave and doing multiple tricks as the wave breaks.


New Olympic Sports

Not all sports are considered Olympic sports.  There is a strict set of criteria that a sport has to meet before it is voted in.  The new Olympic sports in consideration for the 2012 Olympics in London are Karate, Squash, Golf, Roller Sports, and Rugby.  Roller Sports is one of the new recreational sports to make a bid for the Olympics.  The 2008 Beijing Olympics was also the first time the Olympics hosted BMX riding.  It is one of the rare extreme sports accepted in the Olympics.  Sailing could be classified as a new extreme sport that gained Olympic recognition.  Other sports under consideration include netball and cricket.