Facing the extreme

Switzerland has become a Mecca for extreme sports enthusiasts Keystone Archive

A growing number of people are taking up extreme sports - and many of them seek their thrills in Switzerland. Why do they do it, and what are the effects on wider society when things go wrong? A conference in Geneva is trying to find out.

The symposium at Geneva University is the first event organised by the recently formed International Academy of Sports Science and Techniques (AISTS). The question that the lawyers, politicians, sociologists, psychologists and medical experts present are seeking to answer is: What limits should be imposed in extreme sport?

Switzerland is an obvious venue for such a gathering. Not only do its mountains and rivers attract tens of thousands of extreme sports enthusiasts every year, boosting the local economy, but it has also witnessed a number of fatal or near fatal incidents.

The worst came in July 1999, when 21 people on a canyoning expedition died in a flash flood in the Bernese Oberland. A year later, a man died bungee-jumping, also in canton Bern, and in May of this year, a group of students from Zurich were trapped underground for three days while potholing in eastern France.

Dangerous sports

Every time such an incident occurs, there are calls for a federal law governing dangerous sports. Unlike neighbouring countries, Switzerland has no national legislation specifically regulating these kinds of activities.

“The Swiss have an economic approach to law, having general legislation that covers a wide variety of things. These rules were drawn up in the past, and may not be appropriate for modern phenomena,” says Margareta Baddeley, the main organiser of the symposium, and a professor of law at Geneva University.

“Extreme sport is a competitive sector. If there’s no regulation, no need to provide certificates, there’s a risk of anyone setting up a company and not doing things properly.”

One issue that goes to the heart of the problem is defining precisely what an extreme sport is. Is bungee-jumping a sport? Is walking through the Amazon rainforest and rowing across the Pacific, as the Swiss-based adventurer Mike Horn did, a sport at all? Should Formula One Motor Racing be considered an extreme sport?

“The definition you use may have implications for insurance coverage or social security,” says Baddeley.

Definitions are also important for the Swiss Federal Sports Office, since it deals with, promotes and funds those activities that meet certain criteria. It does not consider most adventure activities to be sports, since they fail to meet these criteria. Even so, it is the Federal Sports Office that has been given the task of coordinating the regulation of extreme sports.

Canyoning tragedy

Following the 1999 canyoning tragedy, it set up a working group to draw up provisional guidelines for this activity. It is also studying a scheme created by canton Bern, whereby those adventure holiday companies that meet minimum safety standards are awarded a certificate. This Bern model, as it is known, has also been introduced in the cantons of Valais and Graubünden.

“At the moment, this only applies to canyoning, bungee-jumping and river-rafting,” explains Urs Baumgartner, deputy head of the Federal Sports Office. “But it could be extended to other activities, if it’s considered necessary.”

The major disadvantage is that the provisions of the Bern model are not compulsory, and efforts are underway in the Swiss parliament to make it a federal law. Parliament is expected to discuss the issue in its next session, in September.

“It’s an open question what parliament wants – to tighten regulations or keep things as they are,” Baumgartner told swissinfo.

The extent to which one can regulate these sports is a sensitive issue, since it touches on the whole question of personal freedom. It will also do little to protect those that engage in dangerous activities without supervision and without adequate protection.

Any number of sociological and psychological reasons might explain why people take up extreme sports – it may be peer pressure, it may be a desire to experience the kind of intense sensations one never experiences in everyday life, it may be boredom with conventional sports, it may be simply a perverse attraction to danger.

“Today, we have done everything – we can ski on nice pistes, go diving, climb mountains. If you want bigger thrills, or you want a more exciting holiday, you have to do something more extreme and off the beaten track,” says Baddeley.

by Roy Probert