Need for speed: how sport’s risk takers recognise deadly danger and do it anyway | Emma John

In a stable and affluent society, it is possible to declare that ‘life is for living’ through pursuits that shorten your odds of dyingLast year I visited St Moritz’s infamous Cresta Run. You know the one – the vertiginous skeleton course that has killed a number of its participants and maimed many more. I was with a group of friends who were attempting it for the first time, and who quickly became addicted to the adrenaline fix. I stubbornly refused to even contemplate it