Mad, bad, rad! The craziest extreme sports ever

While extreme sports often seem like masochistic thrill-rides for musclemen and daredevils, they’re not all about brawn.

Skateboarding, BMXing, free running, you name a crazy, adrenalin pumping sport and the likelihood is you’ll find someone with a Lumia in-hand. Maybe it’s the smartphones’ creative design or the crazy colours. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure, extreme sports people love to think outside (cartwheel over and jump) the box. To see for yourself, prepare to marvel at the most imaginative sports ever invented. And, please, do NOT try these at home…

Human Slingshot

Well, this does what it says on the tin. Think bungee cord, a hill, an 8ft jump, a willing victim and a big lake. A quad bike and a bungee cord tug you and your dinghy down the slope and over the jump; the bungee whips the dingy away, and you’re in the air! Definitely not for the weak of heart, but still the closest you might ever come to flying.

Train Surfing

When waves just don’t cut it for you anymore, you could always take to the rails – though we don’t recommend it. People all around the world risk their lives clambering onto the roofs of moving trains to save their fares, but others do it for sport. Outlawed left, right, and centre (fatalities really do abound), train-surfing was popularized as S-Bahn surfing in 1980s Germany, and it’s still going strong today. Surfers cling to the running-boards of the cars or, more unusually, stand upright on the roofs themselves and dodge obstacles like bridges and power-cables. Gulp.

Rock-Boarding

Here’s a creative solution to a topographical conundrum. Not all of us are lucky enough to have ski-slopes close to hand – but rocky hills? They’re almost everywhere! So never mind your snow-boarding – take up rock-boarding instead! All you need is a decent gradient, some loose rubble, and you’re off! Nothing like a bit of good old lateral thinking – though you might need to dig out those knee-pads…

Bog Snorkelling

Think snorkelling’s out of the picture just because you’re nowhere near a clear lagoon? Think again! Some creative soul in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, came up with bog snorkelling back in 1986, and the town now hosts – yes! – the World Bog Snorkelling Championships. You need a mask or goggles, a snorkel and a pair of flippers, and you have to swim two lengths of a 60ft trench dug specially in a peat bog. World Champ wins fifty quid – and you can compete in fancy dress. Get in!

Underwater Hockey

One of the official sports at the World Alternative Games is Underwater Hockey. Players have masks, fins and snorkels, and the sticks are smaller, but otherwise it’s pretty much ice-hockey – just a bit slower, non-contact, and, well, wetter. Spectators have to enter the pool to have any chance of following proceedings, so most fans rely on underwater video-cameras to beam the action out. It’s played all over the world, but the best detail is its alternate name: Octopush!