Flintoff kicks off extreme sports show

Recently retired England cricketer Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff is leaving the whites behind and making a new extreme sports series for ITV4. Which other celebrities have taken their career into extreme sports? Here’s our top five extreme sport celebs.

1. Jackie Chan. As you would expect from a martial arts legend, Jackie Chan wasted no time getting into extreme sports. In his 1991 film Armour of God II: Operation Condor – shown above – in which he starred and directed, the opening sequence sees Jackie in a zorb. The zorbing season has rolled to a stop, but to try another activity click here.

2. James Cracknell OBE. The former Olympic gold medallist is the ultimate extreme sports adventurer. After rowing to gold in Athens, he’s been a full-time, full-on action man. He rowed the Atlantic with fellow celebrity Ben Fogle for Children in Need, was knocked out by a New Zealand boxer, attempted the Norwegian polar explorer Amundsen’s Omega3 South Pole Race and competed in the 2008 European Triathlon Championships for GB. In April 2010 James became the highest placed Briton ever in the 25-year history of the Marathon Des Sables – a six day marathon across the Sahara desert. In August, he was involved in a horror cycling accident in the US, in which he fractured his skull but is, hopefully, on the road to recovery.

3. Eddie Izzard. Stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard is an unlikely convert to the world of extreme sports. In the summer of 2009, after a couple of weeks’ training, the transvestite comedian decided to do seven weeks of back-to-back marathons for Sports Relief. In all he ran 43 marathons in 51 days, keeping fans posted about his progress on his blog Eddie Iz Running. He received a special award on BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year in 2009.


4. Steve McQueen. With a dad who was a stunt pilot for a flying circus, it’s maybe not surprising that movie legend Steve McQueen was drawn to extreme speeds. In his day job in Bullitt, McQueen shot one of film’s most famous car chases and off-screen he was a real-life racer, driving motorcycles, and cars both on and off-road. On-screen, of course, he’s famed for jumping fences on motor bikes in the Great Escape. If you want to try a range of McQueen’s favourite motor sports, click here.

5. Sir Jackie Stewart. Three times winning Formula One racing champion Sir Jackie Stewart went from one extreme sport to another activity. Not content with becoming perhaps the UK’s greatest ever racing driver, he represented his country at clay pigeon shooting too and now runs a clay pigeon shooting school at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. If you want to try clay pigeon shooting, near to where you live, just click here.