Extreme sports gain interest in Sabah 

Sir,

Marathon, mountain biking, rock climbing are just three examples of sports that are making significant progress in Sabah. There is almost no coverage of them in the mainstream press and yet they have a great many local participants. They have also brought tourists to Sabah.

Traditionally these 'adventure' or extreme sports have been considered as marginal by the media but that is simply not the case any more.

The recent Borneo International Marathon had over 1,400 participants, most of them were locals, that demonstrates that we have a huge community of distance runners here.

A new world class indoor climbing centre is about to open in Likas. The island of Berhala off Sandakan is attracting rock climbers from all over the globe.

Every weekend hundreds of mountain bikers take to the trails around KK and Mount Kinabalu; impromptu races and challenges are commonplace now.

Just why all these have escaped the attention of mainstream media is puzzling, I suspect it is due to the historical context of them being rare or hard to join. This is a self-fullfilling prophesy in a way since they are all easily accesible and a lot of fun.

The image of tough guys risking thier lives does the outdoor sports world no favours when these sports are now extremely safe.

Surely the press has a responsibility to report things as they are and raise awareness of the people it serves about the place that they live in.