High-rise parkour
Deadliness rating: !!!!
Popping up in Daniel Craig’s first James Bond flick and even Modern Warfare 2, high-rise parkour ups the ante of its predecessor from possible embarassment to death. Fatality rates are hard to come by, though, because, really, who would believe a person attempting to jump from one building to another isn’t just trying to end it all?
GET INTO IT: www.parkour.asn.au

Free climbing
Deadliness rating: !!!!!
A significant chunk of the sport’s big names, like John Bachar and Derek Hersey, met their ends in climbing accidents that were well within their capabilities. For the climb to be legit, it must be over 25 feet high and done alone. So if you do manage to survive the ascent, relish in the knowledge that no-one else will have seen you do it.
GET INTO IT: www.abc-of-rockclimbing.com

Helidiving
Deadliness rating: !!!
Much like cliff diving, helidiving requires an almost perfect entrance into the water. At the lowest levels of jumping (26 metres), the impact is similar to landing on the pavement from 13 metres. Spawned from scuba divers who cut down on travel times by leaping from a helicopter into the water, helidiving takes the freakiest bits of cliff diving and transports them to anywhere with enough water. The fatality rates of the sport have been kept down by the cost of helicopter use restricting the sport to those with enough cash, but that rotor blade circling above diver heads will surely come in to play soon.
GET INTO IT: www.abyss.com.au/chopper.html 

Snocross
Deadliness rating: !!
Whether you’re X Games legend Blair Morgan or serial drink-driver Lindsay Lohan, travelling at speeds near 100kmh and then launching 30 metres into the air is always gonna be kinda dangerous. Morgan is recovering from a severed spinal cord he suffered during a training run but he’s not alone in the casualty ward — the sheer weight of the snow mobile, the unsteady nature of the snow and the speed at which riders compete means this sport rates as one of the most dangerous X Games activities on offer.
GET INTO IT: www.isocracing.com

Unicycling
Deadliness rating: !!!
Not content with parading around a circus tent or throwing down against four fire-swallowers for quality busking spots, unicycling has made the leap into the competitive mountain bike racing scene. With competitors currently limited to those with an eye on challenging Heidi Montag for the most consecutive cosmetic surgeries record, expect horrendous facial injuries and deadly encounters with passing trees if you ever get mental enough to climb aboard these brake-less death machines.
GET INTO IT: www.municycle.com.au 

Kayaking
Deadliness rating: !!!
A little over a decade ago, a 50 or 60-foot waterfall was the highest drop a kayaker could survive. Advances in technology has advanced the sport with US nutter Tyler Bradt paddling off a record 198-foot monster last year, hitting the water with a G-force of just over nine — the same as a fighter jet. Somehow, he survived. On the upside, paraplegia is a more common occurance than death.
GET INTO IT: www.adventurepro.com.au 

Avalanche skiing
Deadliness rating: !!!
Hurtling down a mountain at over 200km — faster than a sky diver can fall to Earth — with only a mandatory back protector as safety equipment while either chased by (or riding) several million tons of snow is not the action of a sane person. Alpine skiers die at a rate of one in every 3000 accidents, while these blokes die at 10 times that rate. Scary, so don’t trip.
GET INTO IT: www.wildsnow.com/ 

Cave diving
Deadliness rating: !!!!!
Being a diver is bad enough — what with the risk of decompression, which can cause failure of the spinal cord, brain and lungs. But diving in caves takes things to a whole other level. At depths of 100 feet in a pitch-black cave, it’s incredibly easy to lose your bearings, have problems with your air supply — or even be eaten by some big, vicious yet-to-be-discovered subterranean creature. According to the Texas-based San Marcos Area Recovery Team, more than 500 people have died since 1960 while cave diving in Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean alone. In Australia, the permits and training required to be allowed to dive mean it’s a lot safer, with only two divers failing to return from their subterranean adventures since 1973, but still...
GET INTO IT: www.cavedivers.com.au 

Street luge
Deadliness rating: !!
Street luge has little in common with its Winter Olympics namesake, save the proximity of the rider to unforgiving bitumen racing past at up to 100kmh. While compulsory Kevlar body armour protects the limbs during any initial fall, the rules prohibit any brakes apart from footwear, and sadly for the rider, nothing but a solid set of brakes — or more likely a stationary car — will stop a human body at those speeds. Deaths in the past 15 years are rare, but that’s most likely due to body armour laws.
GET INTO IT: www.streetluge.com

Buildering
Deadliness rating: !!!!
ZOO’s own Alain Robert doesn’t have a problem with claustrophobia-inducing lifts, he just likes climbing things no-one else should legally be allowed to — much like Kirstie Alley’s late-night booty call. Requiring little more than an iron grip and a comfort with heights, being arrested is the best case scenario for enthusiasts.
GET INTO IT: www.buildering.net 

Wingsuit flying
Deadliness rating: !!!!!
Hurtling towards Earth looking like a second-generation Chernobyl local has its advantages. For one, it’s possible to travel three-feet forward for every one foot of vertical drop. However, there’s also a deadly drawback: history shows, from Icarus to Wile E. Coyote, the results of experimental flying are usually always disastrous. American wingsuit manufacturer Robert Pecnik narrowly averted death on Bridge Day recently (the only day jumping off bridges in the US is legal), when his suit played up. Until the suit’s capabilities are improved, this is significantly more deadly than BASE jumping.
GET INTO IT: www.apf.asn.au

Ice climbing
Deadliness rating: !!
Along with the potential for avalanches, ice climbing can quickly turn deadly just from the tools of the sport. Ice crampons can quickly turn into spears that slice through your clothing, skin or (as you scramble to regain your footing) the skull of anyone in your vicinity. If you’re climbing beyond someone, watch out for dinner plate-sized chunks of ice falling down the icy face towards you or a sudden crevasse which will leave you stranded. Actually, don’t even bother — our advice is stick to indoor rock climbing.
GET INTO IT: asmguides.com/mountaineering-ice-climbing

Motocross
Deadliness rating: !!!!!
Moving from sideshow act to mainstream in the last ten years, freestyle motocross riders have substantially longer injury lists than medal tallies. With Aussie Cam Sinclair’s miraculous survival from a crash in 2009 and then the death of pro Jeremy Lusk, the level of expertise is clearly no safeguard against possible death or probable mutilation. The amount of cash being thrown at young riders now has them willing to further push the limits, with freestyle injuries one of the most common reasons for visits to the emergency ward in the US.
GET INTO IT: www.fmxaustralia.com.au/ 

BASE jumping
Deadliness rating: !!!!!
Buildings. Antennas. Spans. Earth. Four different ways to die that all will render your carcass something similar to a Jackson Pollock painting upon impact. With roughly one in every 60 jumpers failing to land safely, it’s no wonder the legal consequences of trespassing versus jump are rarely worried about by these loons. With just under 150 deaths attributed to the sport since 1981, it’s enough of a concern to just simply land safely, let alone planning an escape from irate building security.
GET INTO IT: www.skysurfer.com 

Ice speedway
Deadliness rating: !!
Speedway racers have never enjoyed the celebrity of their GP counterparts, although they do enjoy a reputation as being one of the harder bunch of motor enthusiasts. Racing around an ice rink at up to 130kmh, they forgo pesky things like brakes and instead opt for studded tires which wouldn’t be out of place in a torture chamber. The sport is less likely to kill than severely maim, with racing team St Johann taking care of their riders futures by sponsoring potential cures for spinal cord injuries. Very thoughtful of them.
GET INTO IT: www.icespeedway.com 

Cliff diving
Deadliness rating: !!!!
What started as a loyalty test for a Hawaiian king in the 1700s eventually morphed into a sanctioned world-class activity. Reaching just under 100 kmh in three seconds requires an almost perfect feet-first landing to ensure the diver doesn’t become the latest in
a long line of casualities in tombstoning. The incredible force of the water upon entry compresses and contorts the body unless the diver is at optimum strength and muscle form, while the impact is typically nine times of that from a 10-metre platform.
GET INTO IT: www.whdf.com

Space jumping
Deadliness rating: !!!!!
From over four times the height of Mount Everest, Austrian nutter Felix Baumgartner is attempting to break the sound barrier this year.... wearing only a space suit. Only one man has ever survived a sub-orbital space jump and his attempt will be nine klicks higher.
GET INTO IT: www.redbullstratos.com

Street Tubing
Deadliness rating: !!
Born out of the need to stifle boredom after sandbagging — and then looting — houses during Hurricane Katrina, all that towboarding requires is a four-wheel drive, a tow rope and a Macca’s tray. Sounds familiar? It probably is, but the Seppos have claimed it as one of their own and now hurricane season is as eagerly anticipated as the return of the double Big Mac. The rider doesn’t have all the fun, though — spectators get to cheer along as the rider gets disfigured by trees and letter boxes. Hooray!
GET INTO IT: www.youtube.com 

Big wave surfing
Deadliness rating: !!!!
The fall is rarely what will kill a big-wave surfer — it’s usually the hold-down. The force of the wave can push a surfer six metres underwater to the point where ear drums are ruptured and sense of direction stuffed. While normal surfers rely on their ropes to keep their stick close by and also to locate the surface, big wave blokes don’t use them. Deaths in the big wave community aren’t uncommon with pro Peter Davi the most recent to make a permanent visit to Huey.
GET INTO IT: www.billabongxxl.com.au 

Chess boxing
Deadliness rating: !
Gaining a popular following in Europe, the four minutes of chess followed by a three-minute round of boxing is billed as a sport for geeks. The sport went professional in 2003 so the first pro death is still to be determined, but with the fundamental flaw of a good boxer being able to simply sleepwalk through the opening chess round, then beat his opponent unconscious once the boxing starts, it shouldn’t be too long of a wait.
GET INTO IT: wcbo.org 

Have you tried any of these extreme sports?
Which one do you think you'd be most likely to have a crack at?