Vail – Action vs. adventure.
To the untutored ear, it may sound like a matter of simple semantics, or an academic argument over who would win a fictitious battle between Hollywood’s X Men and Indiana Jones.
To the athletes and organizers of the Teva Mountain Games, however, the debate is far from fictional. It’s as real as the rocks and rivers that serve as the preferred playground of so-called “adventure” sports enthusiasts, as prominent as the bumps and bruises they’ve endured in the name of bringing the same acclaim to their games that they’ve seen in the once equally obscure subset of “action” sports.
There was a time, not long ago, when both groups shared the title of “extreme” sports. But while events like the X Games have elevated action sports such as skateboarding, surfing, BMX and snowboarding into the modern mainstream, adventurous rock climbers, river kayakers and mountain bikers remain mired in relative obscurity.
As skateboarder Tony Hawk rakes in video game royalties and BMX stunt rider Dave Mirra is featured on “MTV Cribs,” multiple world champion kayaker Eric Jackson and Olympic mountain-bike racer Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski continue to make the rounds of a grassroots circuit in recreational vehicles, their astounding athletic abilities unknown to almost anyone outside of a core posse of peers.
“Our sports have yet to see the Tony Hawk or the (pro surfer) Kelly Slater really come out of the crowd,” said pro kayaker Brad Ludden of Gypsum, one of the most recognized names in the sport. “We definitely have some legends in our own lunch box, but no really big names.”
That’s exactly what the Teva Mountain Games soon hope to change.
Billed as the country’s largest celebration of mountain sports and culture, the 5-year-old Teva Games have made it their mission to blur the line between the worlds of urban action and mountain adventure, eventually uniting the distorted slick in the oil-and-water extreme sports mix by igniting the adventure element.
“We’ve said all along that we want to become the X Games of the adventure sports world,” said Joel Heath, founder of Edwards-based Untraditional Marketing, producer of the Teva Mountain Games. “Looking at the ESPN model, what they did with the X Games was really create a platform for athletes to show what they can do.
“So many of these sports are based in isolation, whether it’s a rock climbing wall or some small river in the mountains, and our goal is giving these guys a platform for the mainstream media and mainstream spectators to look at and find mentors in these sports. Accessibility is the key.”
Lacking the luxury (or the budget) of his own sports television network, Heath has taken a different approach toward promoting the Mountain Games. While programming on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) and Resort Sports Network (RSN) remains important to the event’s success, the location in downtown Vail so far has been the ultimate key, providing critical interaction with athletes and sponsors and encouraging the lifestyle element of adventure sports through corresponding citizen races and product demos. The direct drive from the dense population base of Denver doesn’t hurt, either.
Rather than measure success in television ratings, Heath points to an increase in event registration of more than 60 percent this year compared with 2005 and the $2.65 million spent within the town of Vail by Mountain Games visitors last year. Based upon visual evidence at the most recent Mountain Games last weekend, the formula appears to be working.
“We’re looking at other destinations around the country to host similar events, but the challenge we face is that accessibility, having the best climber in the world right there and within five minutes be able to walk down the street and watch the best kayaker,” Heath said. “That availability is pretty minimal in the country.”
Convenience the key
Not only is the convenience factor integral to the success of the Mountain Games, participants say, but it is to the growth of adventure sports. Athletes make comparisons among urban skate parks that have bolstered participation in skateboarding, BMX and in- line skating in recent years and the popularity of whitewater kayak parks and climbing gyms, where recreational athletes can practice adventure sports in a convenient, controlled environment.
“We’re seeing our sport go from an elite, expedition sport that only the crazy people did, to a sport that your average high school kid can do on his lunch break,” Ludden said. “It’s like what skate parks did for skating. That’s what it’s going to take for us to ever grow into that realm.”
Ludden, 25, has seen more success than most adventure sports athletes toward achieving the celebrity associated with today’s action sports icons. He has been featured on the cover of Outside magazine and in the pages of Sports Illustrated and National Geographic Adventure. He’s one of few kayakers who employ an agent.
Ludden knows events like the Teva Mountain Games will ultimately push adventure sports and their athletes into the mainstream.
“It helps to have an agent, but our sport is so small that people aren’t banging on the door to see you. You have to create your own success in our sports,” Ludden said. “If you asked me if it was possible to become the next Tony Hawk (as a kayaker) a few years ago, I would have said no. But now, after seeing these Games and seeing what’s happening, I think it’s within reach. I think within the next five years you’re going to see a couple of our sports take athletes and put them out there as a household name.”
Delightfully dangerous
Another vital component, Mountain Games organizers say, is keeping the events fresh and exciting by maintaining the “awe” factor that serves as a common thread between action and adventure sports. Just as the X Games made the move into freestyle moto- cross, surfing and big air skateboarding in recent years, the Mountain Games added an extreme kayak race down one of the steepest navigable creeks in Colorado a few years back and this year included a big air mountain-biking event embracing the current trend toward “freeride” cycling as competitors landed back flips and 360s on beefy, full- suspension bicycles.
“At the Mountain Games, we’ve tried to choose the sports in this outdoor industry of ours that were manifesting this adrenaline spirit that people doing the more traditional type of outdoor activities like backpacking weren’t necessarily noticing – the fringe element, doing these really dangerous, progressive activities. I think it’s those fringe activities that can really expand our industry,” said Adam Druckman, Teva’s global sports marketing manager. “The term I use is ‘outdoor action sports.’ It carries more cachet in terms of energy and youth and vitality and excitement. There’s more of an extreme tone to it.”
That tone resonates with extreme kayaker Tao Berman, a multiple world- record holder who has made a career of hucking himself off some of the tallest waterfalls ever run by boat. Only by emphasizing the extreme, Berman says, will adventure sports cross the threshold achieved in the action sports world.
“Our sport should be marketed from the image driven standpoint, and the sexy image of our sport will always be the extreme side of it,” Berman said. “Spectators don’t have to understand extreme racing or understand what it takes to go over a 100-foot waterfall.
“They just know that there’s risk involved, and in our culture extreme is hot.”
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
