The X Games: The action sports and street scene carnival

PARIS: The X Games, a celebration of "youth lifestyle and action sports", rolled around for its 23rd year in Minneapolis this weekend and remains as committed as ever in leading the push to popularise extreme sports.
Launched in 1995 as the brainchild of American sports broadcaster ESPN, the X Games binds together a collection of extreme sports competitions into a festive annual event — in both the winter and summer.
The 2017 edition is built around skateboarding, BMX, X Bike and concerts, much of which is free and the rest available for as little as twenty dollars.
After helping these sports and others such as snowboarding go mainstream, X Games vice president Tim Reed says it's a constant challenge to refine the event to keep it at the forefront of its domain.
"We stay pretty in tuned to what is happening in action sports," Reed told AFP. "I don't think we are creating sports, but I think we try to take the sports and create unique environments and unique competitions around the sports that could work from an event prospective.
"We are always looking to stay at the forefront of what is relevant in action sports and youth culture. That is one of the things that the brand has worked to evolve and change.
"That is what we really think about and try to develop, we don't know what others are going to do around us but all we can do is look to push and progress our event so that it remains the premier action sport event and really relevant with the youth audience."
Some 200,000 fans were drawn to the inaugural games in Rhode Island and, while not everyone was convinced of its staying power, the early success prompted organisers to plump for a yearly event instead of original plans for a biennial competition.
Olympics take notice
"We'll do almost 20 competitions in this event," Reed said of the upcoming games in Minnesota. "So competitions are definitely key to it, but there's so much more going on around the competition that this lifestyle and this community brings to the X-games when we bring everyone together.
"There is this support from various communities or your fellow athletes to see others achieve success.
"So for us when everyone gets together at these events, the community-feel around the celebration of youth lifestyle, action sports, the music, and the lifestyles really are part of the action sports industry and community that X-games gives a pretty big platform for."
Snowboarding made its Olympic debut in 1998, with BMX following a decade later, while surfing and skateboarding will feature for the first time at Tokyo 2020.
"I think it is awesome that there is more opportunity for skateboarding, BMX, surfing and I think the Olympics is a major platform so I look at it like it is going to fuel more growth, more awareness, more audience for all of these sports and athletes in general," said Reed.
"We have been doing a lot of things that (the International Olympic Committee) have adopted to their sports programme. I think it has a positive impact for all of us."
However, organisers have drawn criticism from the World Anti-Doping Agency and IOC president Thomas Bach for the absence of a drug-testing programme, and Reed admits it's an area being monitored.
"What we continue to do is look at it and evaluate what the event needs year to year," he said.
"At this point we've done what we believe was a great event, and year to year we'll keep evaluating what kind of requirements we need to have for the event." — AFP