Extreme Tales: PR Release
"Extreme Tales" is a compilation of true stories from extreme sports enthusiasts relating their exploits, their motivation and their philosophy. It is aimed at a mass-market audience who want to read about extreme sports enthusiasts and who are only familiar with extreme sports from high profile mass-media coverage in the media.
While the exploits of Alain Robert, alias "Spiderman", an exponent of "Urban Free Climbing", who has scaled the 187m Dubai Marina and the 443m Sears Tower in Chicago have pushed extreme sports into the public eye, most media coverage leans towards the sensational, describing extreme sports enthusiasts as "thrill seekers" and "adrenalin junkies".
The media hype surrounding the deaths of BASE jumpers and the fictional representations of Surfing and Skydiving in films such as "Point Break" (1991), "Drop Zone" (1994) and "Terminal Velocity" (1994) do nothing to dispel the media myth that the extreme sports enthusiast is a "thrill junkie" with a "death wish".
More recently, the scandal of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, when the winner of the first ever Olympic Gold Medal for Snowboarding tested positive for marijuana, further reinforced public perception of the stereotypical extreme sports enthusiast as a stoned airhead surfer or snowboarder whose only utterances are slang like "rad", "tubular" and "far out".
While there is an element of truth in the public stereotype, the reality is different. Extreme sports enthusiasts come from all ages and walks of life, and although their motivations, attitudes and philosophies are all different, they all share a common bond, they all seek the reward that comes from facing a potentially dangerous situation and then overcoming it.
Whether the extreme sports enthusiast is a skateboarder jumping from a half-pipe, a surfer riding a tube, a BASE jumper leaping from a bridge, a snowboarder doing 180 degree flips, or a free climber hanging by their fingertips, the combination of excitement, danger and adrenalin is too much for extreme sports enthusiasts to resist.
"Extreme Tales" aims to capture the thoughts and stories of the people who live for their sport. Whether they are snowboarders or BASE jumpers this book will speak with the authentic voice of the extreme sports movement as the author talks to extreme sports enthusiasts and encourages them to have their say. Telling how they were first attracted to extreme sports, how they got further involved, explaining their philosophy and their motivation, their greatest moments, and in the worst case scenario, how it all went horribly wrong, and what happened next.
The stories in "Extreme Tales" will give an insight into the thrilling and dangerous life of extreme sports enthusiasts, even for someone who doesn't want to leave the comfort and safety of their armchair.
Contents:
The book will be thematically organised. There is a rough outline of the thematic organisation of the book, but themes will be added and removed depending on the amount and quality of material collected.
