Extreme sports

When you go into a Super A-mart sports store in Australia, you are confronted by equipment for the typical Australian sports. The football codes, cricket, tennis, gym wear and a wall of running shoes. 

Its pretty boring when you think about it. If you want some different sports gear, you have to go to an Annaconda adventure store and even then it's just fishing gear, boating and camping. That's great if your idea of 'adventure' is sitting in a comfortable folding chair in a camping ground whilst drinking cold beer from an esky big enough to hold a cow. Our idea of an extreme sport is skateboarding or the like where 'extreme' applies more to the dress code rather than the activity itself. 

The sports stores here in Europe are very different.  It is bizarre to see things like skis, snow spikes, rock climbing harnesses, ice skates, hockey masks and snow jackets that make the Michelin Man look thin. 

I can't help but feel that the sports here are a little more 'extreme' than ours. Don't get me wrong, it takes a lot of courage to wear those short shorts like the AFL players do. But if your sport requires you to carry a portable oxygen mask and a pick-axe, that's extreme.