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heaven's reach Ben Jones tells  us this tale . . .  I could have quite happily drifted along through life,slowly convincing myself   that all men are equal in the eyes of God, knowledge was given and your dog gave a damn about me. Whilst sat in my chair, I saw on television tucked in amongst the late night gems for anti-social personalities, soft porn shows and other cheap thrillers, the fastest growing sports in the world; no balls, no goals, no competition.

On the television, Robby Naish drops in on Hawaii's most insane set wave,'Jaws'. Barrelling at thirty feet over a shallow reef it begs the question, 'freak of nature or the devils work ?' . . . Robby is a childhood hero of mine with a decade of wave titles in hand. In PWA competition at Fiji's toughest break Namotu he ripped to victory, whilst others questioning which foot to put first~broke into tears. More than Nietzsche, he has shown me that "man is something to be surpassed . . . The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live life dangerously". . . Now I believe in superman.

As freesports, from mountainbiking to windsurfing, base-jumping to snowboarding gradually make it into the Oxford dictionary, we ask ourselves how they have sunrived, when the entaurage of Pepsi Max swilling anarchists have since become virtually extinct.

The answer is in the bottom of the glass . . . it seems fit that we should involve ourselves in pastimes which make sport of the chaos that is the natural world. The patterns of earth, wind and water can be at once forgiving and then extreme, and to understand our limitations and potential in these terms is the object of the game. Whether or not you can corkscrew a frontside 720, 'push loop off the lip' or even skate in a straight line is unimportant, when faced with the physical consequences of failure. It's about exploring the furthest reaches of experience.

Keoni Downing who took the $50 000 'winner takes all trophy' at the last Waimea surf championships, is camped out with a selection of Hawaii's hardened surfers at Ka'ani point. As the story goes, he has been camped out now for two years, surfing the big breaks at Waimea and holding his breath underwater for long periods on end; all anticipating the arrival of the Ka'ani point break, which is expected to peak at over forty feet. Whether this arrives or not is unimportant, victory is the knowledge that you'll be ready if it comes. Jason Polakow, one of the main contenders for the 1997 PWA windsurfing wave championships, recently landed an 8ft merlin on a handline dragged off the back of his board, apparently towing the fish 2 miles into Hawaii. Snowboarders have ridden Everest's North face and more remarkably, the snow-capped peaks of Killimanjrao; and when it seems El Nino may just throw up , snowboard contest on a tropical beach in Brazil, you realise how dynamic the elements can be. These images of mankind show him to be as extreme as the world he inhabits. The ability to seamlessly involve yourself in your environment is the marketing dream; if football can sell you a lifestyle, then freesport can give you the real thing.

Photographs courtesy of SSM Freesports Ltd.
Photographs by Squitteri. +loophole pages maintained by Town and Gown Publications © 1998 Town and Gown Publications These pages first created 12/10/97 Last Modified  15/3/98