Hobbies. Leisure Time. Бекерова Е.А - 30 стр.

                               moderately competitive. Sports provide       though riding your mountain bike down a gentle
                               benefits: they amuse and excite us, pro-     slope at a leisurely speed doesn't make you an
                               vide jobs for many people, and allow in-     extreme biker. What does is piloting that bike
                               dividuals who might not have other op-       down a steep, rocky mountain path at a speed of
                               portunities to achieve success. Although     at least 35 miles per hour. You can also call
                               sports have long been popular, something     yourself an extreme sports enthusiast if you ski
                               significant has changed in the last ten to   off cliffs, jump out of a plane and sky surf, or
                               twenty years. A whole new set of sports      go in-line skating.
                               has been created. They are called                   By now, someone somewhere is probably
                               "extreme" because participants are push-     mounting a campaign to make extreme sports
          ski jumping           ing themselves to extreme (and even         safer to save extreme sports enthusiasts from
                                dangerous) levels.                          themselves. Are these sports too dangerous? in-line skating
        Why do people participate in extreme                                                              Perhaps. Even if they are, isn't a personal
sports? Mark Musgrave, an "extreme"                                                                       choice involved here? It occurs to this
sportsman who windsurfs all year around,                                                                  writer that the development of extreme
says people do it because it's a question of                                                              sports is understandable, even quite pre-
attitude, not the activity per se. "These                                                                 dictable. We live in such a globalized,
sports are so hard," says Musgrave, "they                                                                 homogenized world today that a counter-
don't attract the masses; I think that's one of                                                           revolution seems to have started. Wher-
the appealing things about it. You can excel                                                              ever we go, we see sameness: a McDon-
in it if you put your mind to it. There's not a                                                           ald's in Moscow is only marginally dif-
thousand people out there crowding you or                                                                 ferent from one in Paris or in Pensacola,
doing what you're doing." He adds, "There                                                                 Florida. There seem to be far fewer singu-
is no right. There is no wrong. There are no
                                                                                  sky surfing            lar, individualized experiences today than
rules. You can do what you want and no one
cares."                                              windsurfing            there were in the past. Maybe extreme-sport people are merely striking
                                    So what are some of these new ex-       a blow for truly individualized and unique experiences.
                             treme sports? Musgrave's own sport of
                             windsurfing is one, though windsurfing on      2.4. Post-reading discussion.
                             a quiet summer day at a speed of 2 miles             Answer the following questions:
                             an hour hardly qualifies. If you want to             Why do most people like sports, at least a little bit?
                             become extreme, you'll have to travel                What does the article run? Continue:
                             much faster, above the water, with a much            - Sports provide benefits: they amuse and excite us, provide jobs
                             more powerful wind blowing while you're        for many people, and allow individuals who might not have other op-
                             trying to do a forward flip.                   portunities to achieve success.
    mountain biking
                                    Then there's mountain biking, al-             -…

                                   59                                                                          60