You may not remember it, but there was a time when sport had a purpose greater than entertainment and advertising. Early fencing, wrestling, archery, and pentathlon competitions trained troops in the practical arts of war. Later, sport refocused to improve physical fitness and impress women. But the following list shows places where modern sport has devolved into novel death wishes.

10- Street Luging

Street luge was born in Southern California as downhill skateboarders found they could reach faster speeds by lying down on their skateboards. This early form of the sport is now referred to as “laydown skateboarding”.

In 1975, the first professional race was held at Signal Hill, California, and hosted by the U.S. Skateboard Association. The race winner was based on top speed. The boards used in this race varied from basic skateboards to complex skate cars in which the rider was completely enclosed by plastic or fiberglass. The sport was not commonly referred to as street luge at this time but the term luge was used to describe some participants’ riding position. Most contestants were standing up; however, an opening in the rules enabled riders to choose their own board position, including supine. By 1978, repeated injuries to both riders and spectators halted the races at Signal Hill.

9- Heli-Skiing

Heli-skiing is off-trail, downhill skiing that is accessed by a helicopter, as opposed to a ski lift. Heli-skiing is essentially about skiing in a natural, albeit highly-selected environment, without the effort required for hiking into these areas as in ski touring or ski mountaineering.

Heli-skiing has become an increasingly popular activity since its inception in the 1960s, with operators established in Canada, the continental USA, Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, New Zealand, Indian Himalayas, Nepal, Russia, Turkey, Norway(Voss), Sweden, Finland, Argentina, Georgia, Chile and Switzerland. The Canadian province of British Columbia is the most popular area for heli-skiing with over 90% global market share.

The mountain terrain that heli-skiing takes place in is diverse. Runs vary from high alpine glaciers, to alpine bowls, to steep chutes, to gladed trees. Rarely, operations have runs nearing 10,000 feet or 3,000 meters in vertical relief. Average runs are more likely 2,000 feet or 700 meters.

8- Big-Wave Surfing

Big wave surfing is a discipline within surfing in which experienced surfers paddle into or are towed onto waves which are at least 20 feet (6.2 m) high, on surf boards known as “guns” or towboards. Sizes of the board needed to successfully surf these waves vary by the size of the wave as well as the technique the surfer uses to reach the wave. A larger, longer board allows a rider to paddle fast enough to catch the wave and has the advantage of being more stable, but it also limits maneuverability and surfing speed.

In 1992, big wave surfers such as Laird Hamilton and Darrick Doerner introduced a cross over sport called tow in surfing. While many riders still participate in both sports, they remain very distinct activities. This type of surfing involves being towed into massive waves by jet ski, allowing for the speed needed to successfully ride. Tow in surfing also revolutionized board size, allowing surfers to trade in their unwieldy 12 ft. boards in favor of light, 7 ft boards that allowed for more speed and easier maneuverability in waves over 30 ft. By the end of the 1990s, tow in surfing allowed surfers to ride waves exceeding 50 ft.

7- Bull Riding

Bull riding refers to rodeo sports that involve a rider getting on a large bull and attempting to stay mounted while the animal attempts to buck off the rider.

In the American tradition the rider must stay atop the bucking bull for eight seconds. The rider tightly fastens one hand to the bull with a long braided rope. It is a risky sport and has been called “the most dangerous eight seconds in sports.”

Outside of the USA, bull riding traditions with varying rules and histories also exist in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia, with the majority of them following similar rules, especially with the Professional Bull Riders organization.

6- Bull Running

The Running of the Bulls (in Spanish encierro, from the verb encerrar, to fence in, to lock/shut up, to pen) is a practice that involves running in front of a small group (typically a dozen) of bulls that have been let loose, on a course of a sectioned-off subset of a town’s streets. The most famous running of the bulls is that of the seven-day festival of Sanfermines in honour of Saint Fermin in Pamplona, although they are held in towns and villages across Spain, Portugal, in some cities in Mexico, in San Jose Festival held in Trujillo, Peru, Mesquite, Nevada, southern France during the summer.

The origin of this event comes from the need to transport the bulls from the off-site corrals where they had spent the night, to the bullring where they would be killed in the evening. Youngsters would jump among them to show off their bravado. In Pamplona and other places, the six bulls in the event are still those that will feature in the afternoon bullfight of the same day.

5- Cheerleading

Cheerleading (ˈtʃɪərˌlidɪŋ) is an intense physical activity based upon organized routines, usually ranging anywhere from one to three minutes, which contains many components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers and stunting in order to direct spectators of events to cheer for sports teams at games or to participate in cheerleading competitions. The athlete involved in cheerleading is called a cheerleader.

Cheerleading originated in the United States, and remains predominantly American, with an estimated 1.5 million participants in all-star cheerleading. The presentation of cheerleading as a sport to a global audience was led by the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading competition by ESPN International and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring It On. Due in part to this recent exposure, there are now an estimated 100,000 participants scattered around the rest of the world in countries including Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

4- Motorcycle Racing

motorcycle racing, the recreational and competitive use of motorcycles, a sport practiced by both professionals and amateurs on roads, tracks, closed circuits, and natural terrain.

The development of motorcycling largely paralleled and often coincided with the development of automobile sports. There was a class for motorcycles in many of the old town-to-town automobile road races, the Paris-Vienna race, for example. The de Dion tricycle dominated the sport in 1897, but two-wheelers like the Werner soon set the stage for an entirely different form of racing.

3- High Altitude Climbing

Altitude Junkies are known as one of the premier outfitters offering professionally managed mountaineering expeditions.

Our expeditions are unlike traditional commercial expeditions with IFMGA certified guides with a 4:1 climber to guide ratio. We have a single expedition leader who manages the expedition logistics and staff.

All our expedition leaders are all professional climbers and have reached the summits of the mountains that they lead the expeditions to, some numerous times. They climb year round worldwide and have the experience needed to make the expedition successful and safe. All of our leaders have extensive experience in the effects and medical treatment of high altitude ailments.

2- BASE Jumping

BASE jumping, also sometimes written as B.A.S.E. jumping, is an activity where participants jump from fixed objects and use a parachute to break their fall. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).

The acronym “B.A.S.E.” (now more commonly “BASE”) was coined by filmmaker Carl Boenish, his wife Jean Boenish, Phil Smith, and Phil Mayfield. Carl Boenish was the catalyst behind modern BASE jumping, and in 1978, he filmed the first BASE jumps to be made using ram-air parachutes and the freefall tracking technique (from El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park). While BASE jumps had been made prior to that time, the El Capitan activity was the effective birth of what is now called BASE jumping. BASE jumping is significantly more dangerous than similar sports such as skydiving from aircraft, and is currently regarded by many as a fringe extreme sport or stunt.

1- Cave Diving

Cave diving is underwater diving in caves which are at least partially filled with water. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations. Cave diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves decompression.

In the United Kingdom it is an extension of the more common sport of caving, and in the United States an extension of the more common sport of scuba diving. Compared to caving and scuba diving, there are relatively few practitioners of cave diving. This is due in part to the specialized equipment (such as rebreathers, diver propulsion vehicles and dry suits) and skill sets required, and in part because of the high potential risks, including decompression sickness and drowning.

Source: http://toptencollections.com/top-10-dangerous-sports-in-the-world/