Can extreme sports prove Olympic success starts in school?

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     BMX, coasteering, extreme sports, football, kitesurfing, learning sports, mountain biking, Norway, Olympic games, olympics, parkour, Skiing, united states, Vancouver

Everyone remembers school sports. And unless you were very lucky, there was the very familiar list of ‘choices’ which then filled our Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Only recently have schools started to lighten the curriculum and include a new range of sports – some have gone further still and brought extreme sports to sports afternoon.

Now, there must be a correlation between which sports are taught in schools and the Olympic medal tables? We’ve long seen the summer Olympic tallies dominated by the larger countries. But will this remain true with the integration of extreme sports events?

It’s about support: How much do governments support emerging sports; do they invest in training programs and do they even insist that children take part in sport at all? read more