Extreme Sports

Rungrueang Phamee (Toomtam)

Author: Michael Dean

Genre: Sports

Date Started: Friday August 13, 2010

Date Finished: Sunday August 15,2010

There are many places and times. There is more than one main character. The book explains about many extreme sports such as aerial ballet, aggressive in-line skating, BASE jumping, BMX bike riding (vert), canyoning, cave diving, hang gliding, snowboarding, street luge, wakeboarding, and zorbing.

BASE jumping: BASE jumping started at El Capitan, a 915-meter-high mountain in Yosemite, an American national park in 1978, and from 1981, you have had to do 100 skydives and then you get a BASE number. Phil Smith of Houston, Texas, is BASE 1. You jump off a building, a bridge or a peak with a parachute. You usually open your parachute as late as possible.

Hang gliding: Flying was Bill Moyes's life. He loved to fly, but didn't like airplanes. In 1966, he flew higher than any man in the world, at 350 meters above the ground. In 1970, he stopping jumping off mountains. This is the oldest extreme sport. Otto Lillienthal, a German, did it in 1893

Aerial ballet: Skying Orlando, in Umatilla, Florida, is famous for skydiving. World champions jump from airplanes here and skydive down through the sky. If it is your first visit to Florida and your first skydive you can play $200 for it. You jump out of an airplane with some friends. Before your parachute opens, you dance with them in the sky.

Snowboarding: In 1965, the Poppen family were at home in Michigan, US. Sherman Poppen had an idea. He went into his garage and made a board. Now we call it a snowboard. In 1998, a resort was the first extreme sports center in the US for snowboarding. The Winter X Games were there and snowboarding was one of the games. Snowboarders do tricks on their snowboards in the snow.

Cave diving: You dive under the water with air tanks on your back, for example in Florida in the US. Cave Diving is an expensive sport. The cave is dark and quiet and very beautiful.

Bungee jumping: When you bungee jump, you jump from a mountain or from a building. Bungee jumping started in New Zealand and the magazine National Geographic wrote about it in 1955. The highest bungee jump was 180 meters from a building in Auckland, New Zealand.

BMX bike riding (Vert): Every year in the US there's a Summer X Games and a Winter X Games. The first Summer X Games was in 1995 in Rhode Island. There are three kinds of BMX bike riding. In vert you do as many tricks as you can in one minute.

Aggressive in-line skating: You jump up high on your skates. You kick and you do tricks. You can join in every year in the US at the Summer X Games.

Street luge: The board has wheels on it. You get on the board, on your back, and go down the road at about 110 kph. It is so fun.

Wakeboarding: There is a swim from Alcatraz, a prison in the water near San Francisco. Now every fall, people swim from there to San Francisco. A boat pulls you and your board over the water fast. You do tricks on your board.

Zorbing: You climb into a three-meter ball. Then somebody pushes the ball down the street at about 50 kph.

I think the book tells us that extreme sports are dangerous and exciting. I think the best point in the book is the idea that extreme sports can help us to kill fear. I rate this book as nice because it is not too difficult. I like BMX because it is so fun and amazing. I would recommend other students do it because it is fun and so easy.