Extreme Challenges for Cool Boys

While most Beijingers- minds are firmly on the prospect of the city hosting the Olympics in 2008 and the conventional sports that the Games represent, a growing number of local young people are opting for what are known as Extreme Sports, or X-Sports among enthusiasts - daredevil, highly skilled pursuits (see box, page 11) which make great demands on their bodily and mental fitness but which can be very dangerous unless they are properly trained and equipped.

Until recently, the whole range of X-Sports was fragmented, with participants following their particular interest with perhaps one or two friends in any area where they could enjoy themselves without interference. The various pursuits badly needed organizing and regulating, as had happened in the West when X-Sports became popular in the early 1970s.

It was not until the early 1990s that Chinese TV viewers got their first glimpse of X-Sports, and it has taken almost a decade for young Beijingers to band together and form their first formal group, the Cool Boy Extreme Sports Club. Getting this far was not easy, and the club still has a long way to go before it can embrace a wide range of X-Sports for enthusiasts. For now, it is limited to in-line skating, skate-boarding and the amazing practice of Obstacle Cycling - riding a bicycle up, down and along "assault courses- that call for perfect balance and control of the machine.

Pioneers such as Fan Xing, now 24, recall how difficult it was in 1993 when he and other teenagers first started to practice their in-line skating in face of local street-management leaders for allegedly "disturbing public security- . And Yan Jianxin, now 26 and winner of the First Anta Cup Extreme Sports Contest for in-line skating, remembers how hard it used to be to obtain genuine all-in-one boots and in-line skates just six years ago when he first attempted the sport.

The Cool Boy club is led by Fan Xing. Members include top national award winners such as Yan Jianxin as well as beginners like Heng Xin, 20, Zhang Jin, 19, and Chen Long, 21. The club earns income by giving performances at company functions and from running training courses. Last year it performed in 100 schools as part of a Coca-Cola promotional campaign. More than 10 percent of the thousands of students who formed their audiences said they were interested in taking up an extreme sport.

Now the club has clinched a deal with Liuyin Park in northern Beijing to use an area as its training base. Recruitment of students will soon begin. For now, club members practice at weekends in Honglinjin or Shijingshan parks. "Our goal is to reach world standard, and I hope that one day we will perform even better than today's top participants,- says Chen Long, 21, currently the club's best skate-boarder.

Hippy-looking Yan Jianxin, sporting a hairstyle combining long yellow stripes on his crown and cropped side hair - along with three earrings in one ear - is a surprisingly shy character, allowing that a chance encounter with some roller-skaters in Ditan Park a couple of years ago today finds him the holder of one Beijing, and one national, title for his acrobatic displays on the park's U-shaped "stage- - the only such facility in the city for this particular X-Sport.

When Heng Xin, 20, took up roller-skating two years ago, the Lisheng Sports Store was a popular haunt for X-Sport enthusiasts. This was where Heng met Yan, and was introduced to performance roller-skating. Another Cool Club member, Bai Tao, says: "I think skating on the ÔU- is a challenging sport, and I like it. It pushes me to challenge myself constantly, and gives me a sense of accomplishment in learning a new skill.- Fellow club members murmured their assent, feeling that having graduated from practicing on streets, they can now feel proud of having "made it- to the point of enjoying excellent facilities and equipment.

One weekend, some of the group happened to pass by Baiyun Lu on their way home. Recalls roller-skater Yan Jianxin: "We are so much into our game that whenever I see a pole angled against, say, a wall, I get the urge to skate up it.

Such a pole caught their attention at Baiyun Lu, leaning against the second floor of a residential building. As Yan was the best performer among the group, he was encouraged to skate up it. Several attempts failed, and a crowd began to gather, cheering him on. Finally he succeeded.

"That was one of my brilliant weekends,- says Yan modestly. But that's the whole thing about X-Sports. Members can'st resist a challenge and testing themselves to the full. A

- Cool Boys Extreme Sports Club
Tel: 6718-1894, 6718-1925