This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
The World Extreme Skiing Championships (WESC) was an extreme skiing competition held from 1991 to 2000 in Valdez, Alaska. It was brought back for one year in 2011 but was discontinued for lack of athlete interest. [1] Co-founder Karen Davey Stewart died in September 2015. [2]
Action sports, adventure sports or extreme sports are activities perceived as involving a high degree of risk of injury or death. 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 ski lift is a mechanism for transporting skiers up a hill. Ski lifts are typically a paid service at ski resorts. The first ski lift was built in 1908 by German Robert Winterhalder in Schollach/Eisenbach, Hochschwarzwald.
Extreme skiing is performed on long, steep slopes in mountainous terrain. The French coined the term 'Le Ski Extreme' in the 1970s. The first practitioners include Swiss skier Sylvain Saudan, who invented the "windshield wiper" turn in the mid-1960s, and in 1967 made the first descents of slopes in the Swiss, French and Italian Alps that were previously considered impossible. Saudan's 'first descent' in America was at Mt. Hood March 3, 1971. Early American practitioners include Bill Briggs, who descended Grand Teton on June 15, 1971. The Frenchmen Patrick Vallençant, Jean-Marc Boivin and Anselme Baud and the Italians Stefano De Benedetti and Toni Valeruz were among those who further developed the art and brought notoriety to the sport in the 1970s and 1980s.
Courchevel is a French Alps ski resort located in the Tarentaise Valley. It is a part of Les Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski areas in the world.
The Bear River Range, is a mountain range located in northeastern Utah and southeastern Idaho in the western United States.
Râșnov is a town in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania with a population of 15,920.
Olympus, or Chionistra, at 1,952 metres (6,404 ft), is the highest point in Cyprus. It is located in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus. Mount Olympus peak and the "Troodos Square" fall under the territory of Platres in Limassol District. A British long range radar currently operates at Mount Olympus' peak. It has a highland warm-summer mediterranean climate.
Céüse is a limestone mountain in the Hautes-Alpes département of France near Gap and Sigoyer. The "Pic de Céüse" is at an elevation of 2,016 metres (6,614 ft), and the whole massif is included in the Natura 2000 protected area. The mountain has a distinctive large horseshoe-shaped cliff which contains some of the most extreme sport climbing routes in the world. It is also the site of a ski resort.
Freeriding is a style of snowboarding or skiing performed on natural, un-groomed terrain, without a set course, goals or rules. It evolved throughout the sport's formative years as a contrary response to the highly regimented style of ski competition prevalent at the time. Snowboarders primarily refer to freeriding as backcountry, sidecountry, or off-piste snowboarding, and sometimes big mountain or extreme riding.
A superpipe is a large halfpipe structure used in extreme sports such as snowboarding, freestyle skiing, skateboarding, scooters, freestyle BMX and vert skating.
Andreas "Andi" Goldberger is an Austrian former ski jumper.
Nordica is an Italian manufacturing company of winter sports products, focusing on skiing. Based in Giavera del Montello, Nordica is currently a division of Tecnica Group, after it was acquired from Benetton in 2003.
Scot Schmidt is a professional extreme skier.
Patrick Vallençant was a French alpinist/skier and pioneer in ski mountaineering.
The Bec des Rosses is a mountain of the Pennine Alps, overlooking Verbier in the Swiss canton of Valais. It is connected to Verbier and the 4 Vallees ski area.
The Rosa Khutor Extreme Park under license from The Extreme Sports Company and part of the Extreme Hotel, Sochi development, is a skiing venue located west of the Rosa Khutor plateau in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. During the 2014 Winter Olympics in neighboring Sochi, it hosted the freestyle skiing events and the snowboarding events. Seating 4,000 in the freestyle skiing area and 6,250 in the snowboarding areas, it was first used in September 2012.
The Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort is an alpine ski resort in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located at the Aibga Ridge of the Western Caucasus along the Roza Khutor plateau near Krasnaya Polyana. Constructed from 2003 to 2011, it hosted the alpine skiing events for the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, based in nearby Sochi. The resort is 50 kilometers (30 mi) east of the Black Sea at Sochi; the majority of the slopes at Rosa Khutor face northeast, with the backside slopes facing southwest.
Kévin Rolland is a French freestyle skier. He won the gold medal at the 2009 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in the halfpipe. He lost his title in 2011 to the Canadian Mike Riddle but still finished on the podium at the second place.
Big air is a high-injury-risk sports discipline where the competitor rides a vehicle, such as a motocross motorcycle, a skateboard, a snowboard, or a pair of skis, down a hill or ramp and performs aerial tricks after launching off very large jumps. In most versions, there is one large jump and therefore only one opportunity to perform a trick. It is an extreme version of slopestyle. Competitors perform complex tricks in the air, aiming to attain sizable height and distance as well, all while making every effort to secure a clean landing. Many competitions also require the rider to do a specific trick to win the major prize. The term was coined by French-Canadians because of their love for the extreme nature of the event.
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.