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The Dangerous Sports Club was a group of adventurers and extreme sports pioneers based in Oxford and London, England. They were active from the late 1970s for about ten years, during which they developed modern bungee jumping and experimented with a variety of other innovative sporting activities. [1] [2]
The Dangerous Sports Club was co-founded by David Kirke, [3] Chris Baker, Ed Hulton and Alan Weston in the 1970s. They first came to wide public attention by inventing modern day bungee jumping, by making the first modern jumps on 1 April 1979, from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England. [4] They followed the Clifton Bridge effort with a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (including the first female bungee jump by Jane Wilmot), and with a televised leap from the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge in Colorado, sponsored by and televised on the popular American television program That's Incredible! Initially, bungee jumping was a niche novelty; it was popularised by A J Hackett, and has become a mainstream activity. [5]
David Kirke died on 21 October 2023, at the age of 78. [6] [7]
The club's activity and membership peaked in the 1980s, with several dozen active members and holding a wide range of events. The Club was heavily covered in the press, and made a film released in 1982 ("The History of the Dangerous Sports Club") as a supporting feature. [8] Their activities were recorded by photographer Dafydd Jones, including an image of a young Nigella Lawson playing croquet from a sedan chair during a club tea party. [9] The group split into various factions over the years. Monty Python member Graham Chapman was perhaps their most famous member, who worked on a feature film about the club. When making personal appearances in the 1980s, Chapman would show films of Club activities.
The Club, although later achieving a degree of social diversity, was rooted in the English upper class and centred in Oxford and, later, the West End of London. The style of dress adopted by members during their activities often included top hats and tailcoats, gaining a champagne-swilling image. [2]
In addition to bungee jumping, the club specialised in high risk and surreal activities. The Club pioneered surrealist skiing, beginning in 1983 and holding three events at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in which competitors were required to devise a sculpture mounted on skis and ride it down a mountain. Entries included a grand piano, a Louis XIV dining set, and an 8-man boat. [2] The event reached its limits when the Club arrived in St. Moritz with a London double-decker bus, wanting to send it down the ski slopes, and the Swiss resort managers refused. [2] [10] In 1986, David Kirke was sponsored by Foster's Lager to cross the English Channel in a kangaroo-shaped balloon, suspended beneath helium balloons, leading to his prosecution for flying without a pilot's licence. [11]
Other Club activities included expedition hang gliding from active volcanoes; the launching of giant (60 ft) plastic spheres with pilots suspended in the centre (zorbing); microlight flying; and BASE jumping (in the early days of this sport).
The Oxford Stunt Factory, which shared many members with the Dangerous Sports Club gained notoriety in 2002 when an Oxford student was killed on launch from a trebuchet by former Club members David Aitkenhead and Richard Wicks. The trebuchet had been set up to throw a subject around 30 metres into a safety net. However, Kostydin (Dino) Yankov, 19, fell short of the safety net and suffered severe spinal and leg injuries, and died five hours later in Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. [12] [13] Aitkenhead and Wicks were charged with manslaughter, but were acquitted on grounds of insufficient evidence. [14]
BASE jumping is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute to descend safely to the ground. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Participants exit from a fixed object such as a cliff, and after an optional freefall delay, deploy a parachute to slow their descent and land. A popular form of BASE jumping is wingsuit BASE jumping.
A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel its payload. Most convert tension or torsion energy that was more slowly and manually built up within the device before release, via springs, bows, twisted rope, elastic, or any of numerous other materials and mechanisms.
Action sports, adventure sports or extreme sports are activities perceived as involving a high degree of risk. These activities often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion and highly specialized gear. Extreme tourism overlaps with extreme sport. The two share the same main attraction, "adrenaline rush" caused by an element of risk, and differ mostly in the degree of engagement and professionalism.
A trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weights and further distances than that of a traditional catapult.
Bungee jumping, also spelled bungy jumping, is an activity that involves a person jumping from a great height while connected to a large elastic cord. The launching pad is usually erected on a tall structure such as a building or crane, a bridge across a deep ravine, or on a natural geographic feature such as a cliff. It is also possible to jump from a type of aircraft that has the ability to hover above the ground, such as a hot-air-balloon or helicopter. The thrill comes from the free-falling and the rebound. When the person jumps, the cord stretches and the jumper flies upwards again as the cord recoils, and continues to oscillate up and down until all the kinetic energy is dissipated.
The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Avon Gorge and the River Avon, linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. Since opening in 1864, it has been a toll bridge, the income from which provides funds for its maintenance. The bridge is built to a design by William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw, based on an earlier design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is a Grade I listed building and forms part of the B3129 road.
Extreme ironing is an extreme sport in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing. According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau, extreme ironing is "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt."
Adventure travel is a type of niche tourism, involving exploration or travel with a certain degree of risk, and which may require special skills and physical exertion. In the United States, adventure tourism has grown in recent decades as tourists seek out-of-the-ordinary or "roads less traveled" vacations, but lack of a clear operational definition has hampered measurement of market size and growth. According to the U.S.-based Adventure Travel Trade Association, adventure travel may be any tourist activity that includes physical activity, a cultural exchange, and connection with outdoor activities and nature.
The BBC One Balloon idents were a series of idents used on the British TV channel BBC One from 4 October 1997 to 28 March 2002. The balloon theme replaced the computer-generated spinning globe that had been used as the main ident on the channel since 1991, and marked a radical departure from the traditional spinning globe which had been the channel's primary identity since 1963. It launched on the same day as a BBC-wide rebrand, and thus the new idents also carried the new BBC logo. The channel's name also changed from BBC1 to BBC One. This was the last ident set used by the channel when it fully closed down; the last proper closedown took place in the evening hours of 8 November 1997. Starting the following evening, BBC News 24 would broadcast on BBC One during closedown, which continues today.
The Lillie Bridge Grounds was a sports ground on the Fulham side of West Brompton, London. It opened in 1866, coinciding with the opening of West Brompton station. It was named after the local landowner, Sir John Scott Lillie (1790–1868) and the Lillie bridge over the West London Line, that links Old Brompton Road with Lillie Road. The grounds were adjacent to the railway on the south side of Lillie Road. Although geographically near to present day Stamford Bridge, there was never direct access, there being the 13 acre now defunct Western Hospital site between the two. The ground was the scene in its day of many sports including athletics, boxing, cricket, cycling and football, and hosted the FA Cup Final in 1873. It closed in 1888 following a riot reported in The Times.
The term "air sports" covers a range of aerial activities, including air racing, aerobatics, aeromodelling, hang gliding, human-powered aircraft, parachuting, paragliding and skydiving.
Allan John "A. J." Hackett is a New Zealand entrepreneur who popularised the extreme sport of bungy jumping. He made a bungy jump from the Eiffel Tower in 1987 and founded the first commercial bungy site in 1988. He is also the father of freestyle skier, Margaux Hackett.
Sheffield Ski Village was an artificial ski slope complex in the Parkwood Springs area of Sheffield, England which operated from 1988 until it was destroyed by fire in 2012. It was believed to be the largest artificial ski resort in Europe with a sports shop, bar, restaurant and a range of slopes which included a Snowflex nursery slope, a Dendix recreational slope and a freestyle park consisting of a half pipe, hip jump, kicker, a quarter pipe and various grind rails.
Ski flying is a winter sport discipline derived from ski jumping, in which much greater distances can be achieved. It is a form of competitive individual Nordic skiing where athletes descend at high speed along a specially designed takeoff ramp using skis only; jump from the end of it with as much power as they can generate; then glide – or 'fly' – as far as possible down a steeply sloped hill; and ultimately land within a target zone in a stable manner. Points are awarded for distance and stylistic merit by five judges. Events are governed by the International Ski Federation.
Jack Osbourne: Adrenaline Junkie is a British reality television series on ITV2, series 1 focused on Jack Osbourne's globe-trekking six-month quest to get in physical and mental shape to climb the rockface of California's El Capitan mountain, the show documents Osbourne running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, following a strict exercise regimen, Muay Thai training in Thailand, and "an overall 180-degree mental make-over".
Sportswear or activewear is clothing, including footwear, worn for sport or physical exercise. Sport-specific clothing is worn for most sports and physical exercise, for practical, comfort or safety reasons.
Jenny Jones is a British professional snowboarder who became the first Briton to win an Olympic medal in a snow event after winning bronze in slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Outdoor recreation or outdoor activity refers to recreation done outside, most commonly in natural settings. The activities that encompass outdoor recreation vary depending on the physical environment they are being carried out in. These activities can include fishing, hunting, backpacking, walking and horseback riding — and can be completed individually or collectively. Outdoor recreation is a broad concept that encompasses a varying range of activities and landscapes.
Half-pipe skiing is the sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe. Competitors perform a series of tricks while going down the pipe. The current world record for highest jump in a half-pipe is held by Joffrey Pollet-Villard, with 26 feet 3 inches. The sport is considered to be dangerous compared to other sports, and helmets are required to be worn during competitions. Half-pipe skiing has been part of the Winter X Games since 2002, and made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. David Wise of the United States of America became the first Olympic champion in this discipline with a total of 92.00 points.
David Antony Christopher Potter, known as David Kirke, was a British sportsperson.