A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, sometime in the year 1993, Ron Semiao, Director of Programming for ESPN2 was working out those soft muscles in his lower back that conform to the shape of his over-stuffed couch, "when it occurred to (him) that extreme sports (were) emerging not only in a participatory nature, but in a competitive nature" and the fluorescent light bulb over his head went pop pop fizz fizz and he said to himself, Yeah yeah that's it--the extreme Olympics! This will be the largest gathering of extreme athletes ever. Just think about it: rad dudes everywhere! What could be better than that!? Absolutely nothin! Once this hallucinatory light bulb went full halogen Ron decided that Newport and Providence would be the perfect locations for the festivities. He dug "the contrast between Newport's traditional appeal---mansions, old money, America's Cup--and its summer reputation as a party town." And he "loved the fact that (in Providence) the downhill (in-line and luge) course would pass by an Ivy League school (Brown University). It gave everything an edge, made it sexy and exciting." And to make it even sexier to the people in TV land they went nuts with the technology--over a hundred cameras --helmet cams, dirt jump cams, point-of view cams mounted on wheels of skateboards and street luge sleds. They even had heart rate monitors hooked up to bungy jumpers and Sony Jumbo Trons everywhere.

I had heard so much about the X Games last year that I refused to be left at home this year, so Urban Desires opened their hearts (and their wallets) and sent Brian, my husband, and me on a journey to X land. We had been following the games on ESPN so we were totally fired up and packed our excursion with as much as we possibly could. We had to choose from 400 athletes in 9 sport categories: barefoot water skiing, bungy jumping, aggressive and downhill in-line skating, skateboarding, bicycle stunt, sky surfing, street luge, sport (rock wall) climbing and, my favorite, the Extreme Adventure Race. This race is the most insane sounding thing in the world. Imagine being dumped in the wilderness somewhere in upstate New York and being handed a couple of maps. You are with 2 teammates (one has to be a man and one a woman) and now you have to kayak, white water raft, swim, climb, bicycle, and whatever else you have to do in order to end up in down town Newport in 5 days. Ready. Set. Go! Who signs up for this!?

Now, being the in-line skate freak that I am, once we got to Newport we headed straight for the in-line street course where we ran into Ryan Jacklone. Ryan had just placed 2nd in the in-line best trick competition. We missed it, but apparently he landed a killer lukane misty flip which means that he did a sideways rolling flip with a kick, landing on his feet, of course. He lost to Dion Antony who transferred from one quarter pipe to another, clearing a 6 foot gap and landing on the coping, frontside royale...that is, sliding across the edge of a wall. Anyway, Ryan, all puffed up from his recent victory, was standing on the edge of the street course surrounded by a pack of thirteen year-old girls trying to get the attention of his friend, Dave. So he screamed at Dave who was working on some sort of grinding thingamaflip, "Hey, Dave! You gotta come over here and kiss these girls!" OK. I'm here covering a story and this is my first quote from an athlete. I know we're in X land now. Next, we bump into Kate Gengo (one of the rad chicks on concrete). Kate was sporting a hefty arm cast which she won in her last competition preventing her from competing, but, not to be stopped, she was participating in the Games as an apprentice judge. She rambled on nonstop about mute acid drops, fish brains and stale Japans. She greeted friends and giggled as she gave us the skinny on the various parties and other happenings back at the dorms where the competitors crash. She looked a little tired, but certainly happy, and explained that she'd been partying with the guys until all hours. Apparently, they house the BMX bikers, the skateboarders and the in-line skaters in the same dormitory. Sound like hell?! Or a rockin' good time? Allegedly (and you know what I mean by allegedly) the whole lot of 'em were out at clubs drinking and dancing and getting stoned every night. The ones that were too young to go out would stay back at the dorms, play video games and füsball drinking beer out of paper bags and taking walks to get high. Even if you tried to be in bed by 1am (which I guess some did ) the dorms didn't quiet down until dawn. Must have something to do with endurance training.