Xpect the unXpected
Friday, June 19
The Mountain Zone has stepped off its peak and dropped in on the X Games to see some world class mountain freaks take their profession to the man made mountains of San Diego.

The fourth annual Summer X Games will again showcase the world's best athletes doing what they call work, what we call play, and everyone else calls "extreme". We'll be focusing our cameras on the ones (like us) who they had to lure off the mountains with money and Mexican food to witness the incredible spectacle here at Mariner's Point in San Diego.

"There were helmet cams, dirt jump cams...even cameras mounted to the wheels of skateboards and street luge sleds..."

The international field of competitors are all back for redemption or confirmation. So if you worship relatives of Spiderman ("...does whatever a spider can..") check back here Monday and the start of the Sportclimbing Difficulty competition. Seventeen-year-old Americans Katie Brown and Chris Sharma have a lot to prove on their home turf.

Hans Florine is back one year older (35) and presumably one year faster. Hans is looking for his fourth X Games Gold at the top of the speedclimbing course. Speed freaks are unleashed on Tuesday and we'll slow down the video so you can see that they are actually climbing the wall and are not on strings.

On Friday the snow will be revealed and riders from around the world will take flight in the Snowboarding Big Air contest. Look for inversions and spins to be the agenda for the day. Last year Peter Line did it with a 900 degree spin to win. That was just one from his bag of tricks. See his signature maneuver here. The Big Air finals will wrap up on Saturday so stay tuned.

History of the X
The idea for the X (extreme) Games came to Director of Programming for ESPN2 Ron Semiao in 1993 when, he says, "it occurred to me that extreme sports [were] emerging not only in a participatory nature, but in a competitive nature."

Also looming was the fact that a lot of money was being passed around when, according to the 1998 X Games Research Manual, "mainstream advertisers were hooking up with alternative athletes and alternative sports." And because Semiao didn't want ESPN to miss the boat, soon after he was pitching the "idea of extreme Olympics," he says.

The first Extreme Games took place in 1995 when 350 athletes were invited to participate in 27 events in nine sport categories including: bungy jumping, barefoot waterski jumping, kite skiing, windsurfing, skysurfing, bicycle stunt riding, mountain biking, street luge, skateboarding and the "Eco-Challenge."

According to ESPN, the '95 Games, held at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island "would be the largest gathering of extreme athletes ever" and the biggest production event in the history of ESPN. One hundred and fifteen cameras were used including "helmet cams, dirt jump cams, point of view cameras mounted on top of the climbing wall and halfpipe. There were even cameras mounted on the wheels of skateboards and street luge sleds."

The event drew 133,000 spectators and each television broadcast was watched by an average of 720,000 households. The original plan of holding the Games every other year was quickly scrapped in favor of holding them annually and the name was officially changed to the X Games (which now also include the Winter X Games).

The '96 X Games were held in downtown Newport and no longer included mountain biking, kite skiing or windsurfing, and wakeboarding was added to the roster. It was also in this year that the Eco-Challenge (a trademarked race) was changed to the ESPN branded Extreme Adventure Race.

It was in 1997 that the Games, minus bungy jumping, but now including Big Air Snowboarding, were West Coast stylized and held in the same location as these Games, Mariner's Point in San Diego, California. So here we are and here you soon will be.

Let the Xing begin

—Hans Prosl, Going Mainstream for The Mountain Zone