Added: 871 days ago by Kevin Holmes | Posted in: World | 8 Comments

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<div align='center'><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog/19640/The-8-Most-Dangerous-Extreme-Sports/'>The 8 Most Dangerous Extreme Sports</a><br><div align='center'></div><br><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog'>See more like this on kontraband.com</a></div>

Personally I become anxious when travelling relatively fast on a highway, or I begin to experience the dizzying queasiness, the nauseous delirium of vertigo when staring over a 10ft balcony. So I do admire these sports and the people who do them. The fact that they can contain their fear, manage it, and use it to strengthen them and drive them onwards fascinates me in its foreignness; it's like a strange alien landscape, mysterious and enchanting. Perhaps one day I'll attempt something modest, like leaping from a wall while holding a plastic carrier bag above my head.

But it's all about the buzz, right? So the more dangerous it is the bigger the buzz, that wouldn't be too much of an assumption. And those listed below seem, to my mind, some of the most dangerous out there. In wanting to feel alive these people push themselves to the very edge of death. A strange paradox but not completely unfathomable.

1. Wingspan Proximity Flying
This is the most dangerous thing you can do on Earth. Yeah you could swim with sharks while covered in dolphin meat. You could kick a polar bear in the nuts while wearing a seal pup slipper, or you could forget you girlfriend's birthday. But they pale into insignificance when compared with jumping out of a helicopter or off a cliff edge thousands of feet up - dressed in a wing suit that gives the pilot's body the shape of an airfoil, creating lift in the fabric sewn between the legs and arms. Then flying within 10ft of the jagged mountain face daring death to come and get you while poking it in the eye. A young exponent of this called Jeb Corliss could be called the world's most fearless man. Diagnosed with counterphobia - a pathological desire to confront fear - as a child, his greatest achievement was flying down the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps, coming within 7ft of the mountain at speeds in excess of 100mph. So a neutrino's worth of margin for error, then. Invigorating and terrifying to watch, it's pure, authentic, unrivalled craziness.

2. BASE Jumping
This is very similar to wingspan proximity flying - which evolved from BASE jumping when BASE jumping just wasn't cutting it in the danger stakes (go figure?). But it's different because the practitioner just freefalls from a fixed object before opening their parachute, rather than flying or more accurately, gliding. BASE stands for Building Antennas Spans Earth, the various platforms used as a jumping point. It's more dangerous than just normal skydiving because of the lower altitude and has a quite big fatality rate. The British Journal of Sports Medicine reported the overall fatality risk for the year 2002 was estimated at about one per 60 participants.

3. Space Parachuting
On August 16th 1960 Joseph Kittinger, Command Pilot in the United States Air Force, made a high-altitude jump from a height of 102,800ft falling nearly 20 miles to terra firma in around 4mins and 36 seconds. On his way exceeding the speed of sound, setting records for highest parachute jump and longest and fastest freefall. Here is that amazing feat. That's the sort of sport I call extreme, breaking the goddamn sound barrier while freefalling to Earth from space. The record he attained for highest jump is something that champion skydivers like Cheryl Stearns have been trying, unsuccessfully, to break ever since.

4. Ultimate Fighting Championship
A sport dubbed by John McCain as "human cockfighting", but what does he know? That was just the sound of his balls shrinking. These guys fight mean, and while it's more mainstream than when it started out, it's still a championship where fighting styles are mixed like you were baking a cake made from badass. I certainly wouldn't want to go into a caged structure with the current UFC Heavyweight Champion, muscular Marvel-esque monstrosity Brock Lesnar. The only way this sport could become more dangerous is if you told the competitors their wives were seen leaving a hotel with their opponent a few nights back.

5. Bull Riding
We all know this one, rodeo riding, the stuff of legend and what separates the cowboys from the cowmen, or something like that. Dosed up to the wide-brim of their cowboy hats on the finest American beef - no doubt deep-fried on pitch forks in a bucket of oil and pork fat - these guys rodeo ride a large bull and attempt to stay mounted for 8 seconds. Quite easily you could be thrown to the ground like a rag doll and trampled into an oozing fleshy mess. Every instinct in your body would be telling you to run for the hills, screaming wildly, which is why it's been called "the most dangerous 8 seconds in sport", and I wouldn't argue with that. Not only does it take supreme strength but it also takes balls the size of California.

6. Whitewater Rafting
There are varying degrees of danger in this sport. At the lower end it's family holiday territory, but at the higher end it's like battling with an angry river god. At its highest grade, Grade 6, only a maddened fool would attempt it. If you live to tell the tale, a gold statue is built of you 100ft high and you are worshipped like an Aztec king. Even on the lower end of the scale you'll likely to sustain some injuries. What's the matter with a nice relaxing sojourn down the Thames, with Pimms, your favourite pipe and a few beautiful ladies. Hmm?

7. Freestyle Motocross
This action sport sees only the brave fly through the air on a motorbike while performing stunts like pouring a cup of coffee with their foot while completing a crossword. Maybe. It involves backflips, handflips, foot jumps, one-handed hart attacks and all sorts of insanity before attempting to land the bike on two wheels thus avoiding a devastating crash that leaves you in such a state that compared to you Christopher Reeve was "able-bodied". Meaning he could blink.

8. Free-diving
The mind-boggling activity of holding your breath while diving up to and beyond 330ft underwater, unaided by any breathing apparatus. If we were meant to do such things we'd have evolved gills, but let me not trivialise such a dangerous sport. I imagine there was a time when our ancestors used similar techniques, and some still do, to go spearfishing. My own lungs wouldn't stand such depths, if I sip my coffee for too long I begin to drown, emerging spluttering and gasping after too big a gulp.

Added: 871 days ago by Kevin Holmes | Posted in: World | 8 Comments

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