The emergence of extreme Pogo
Young people all over the world are always trying to come up with the newest extreme sport that they can lay claim to. Recently, a new extreme sport has started to emerge in America - the sport of extreme pogo. This sport takes that little toy to newer and extreme levels. The humble pogo stick has received a major makeover with a new sturdy pogo stick being invented from space age material and this has allowed people to go flying ten feet in the air and doing tricks while soaring. With the birth of extreme pogo, one has to wonder what crazy new extreme sport will be developed in the days to come.
The humble pogo stick has a fascinating history. There is a legend, which is probably not true, that states that a traveller wandering through Burma in the early 1900s, came across a poor farmer and his daughter. The daughter wanted to travel to a temple everyday but had no shoes and could not walk across the stones. So her father made a crude jumping stick for her to help her get to the temple. Well even though this story may not be true, the first pogo stick was patented by a man named George Hansburg. It seems the first pogo sticks were invented in Germany in 1918. They were made out of wood and shipped to America. When they reached the shores of the United States of America that the wood had wrapped and the pogo sticks were ruined. A department store that was going to sell them asked Hansburg to redesign them and make them sturdier to use. He designed a pogo stick out of metal and high quality springs. The rest is history.
The sport took an extreme turn recently when a bunch of skateboarders and BMXers got a hold of the pogo. An annual competition known as Pogopalooza and this year was the seventh incarnation of the event. It is basically the self styled World Championships of extreme pogo and it attracted 34 competitors to the event this year. Some of the events that extreme pogo riders took part in were big air, high jump, technique and best trick. Competitors did spins, tricks and flips while jumping through the air on their pogo sticks. Some of the extreme athletes even managed to get almost ten feet in the air. Spills were also common in the event with people falling hard when they landed in an improper manner. The thing about extreme pogo is that it is very hard on the joints of the athletes competing in the event. The shuddering jolt that they feel when they land on the ground is very painful and a lot of athletes do not compete past a certain age.
The pogo stick that is used is not a normal stick. It is made from reinforced space age metal and has heavy duty springs in it. It has to be much tougher than a normal pogo stick because of the insane amount of tricks that people do on them. A normal stick would just crumble under pressure. Enter the Vurtego; this specially designed pogo stick uses a patented air-spring propulsion system and unleashes the big bounce that extreme athletes crave. It was invented by sixty five year old Bruce Spencer and is currently the best and most durable pogo stick in the world. We will probably see newer versions of the old school pogo stick emerge which cater to different segments of the pogo stick loving audience out there.
What used to be a childhood activity has become a fully fledged extreme sport. With high flying pogo stick events set to grow all over the world, the sport will generate more interest. If a governing board is made to oversee the rules and regulations of the sport, we could be in store for a proper sanctioned sport very soon. We will have to wait and see what the extreme crowd come up with in their quest to find something more extreme.
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