Sport is a mixed bag. There are an awful lot of sports out there and not all of them are quite as sane as others. In fact, some of them are downright crazy. Here are seven insane sports that will have you wondering how they were ever conceived.
Crossing the Finnish line
They do things differently in the Nordics. So the fact that they have a sport that involves all-terrain wife carrying shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. The winner is awarded the weight of his spouse in beer, which is not as exciting as what players in live casino online Australia can win.
California has a place on this list owing to its legendary four-legged Olympiad. OK, it’s just the one sport, but dog surfing is still a uniquely Californian speciality. The Loews Coronado Bay Resort Surf Dog Competition takes place annually in San Diego and prizes are awarded, amongst other things, for the number of dogs you can get on a board at any one time – border collies count double.
Hump fans’ Turkish delight
Camel wrestling has a history in Turkey dating back 2,000 years. Every January, a camel wrestling festival is staged in Selcuk in Eastern Turkey. There are an estimated 1,200 specially bred camel wrestlers in the country.
Extreme ironing
No one really knows why this exists but it does. Real people, take real ironing boards up mountains, down rivers and even under water in order to pretend to do some ironing. Something this ridiculous has no need for any competitive element. Everyone involved is already operating at the limit of human endeavour. They really don’t need pressing any further.
Egg throwing
The throwing is the easy part. Egg throwing also involves egg catching. That’s where things can get a bit messy. The history of what is now a worldwide sport has been somewhat scrambled over the centuries, but is it believed to date back all the way to 1322 and the village of Swaton in England where the world championships are now held every May. Veteran competitors are described as hard boiled.
Armless fun
In Malaysia and Thailand they play a version of volleyball with a difference. The difference is that using hands and arms is forbidden. Sepak takraw is said to have been invented by the Malaysian royal family over 500 hundred years ago. Presumably they had a sense of humor.
Cheesy jokes inevitable
The English specialize in silliness. Cheese rolling – i.e. chasing a big lump of cheese down a hill – is a case in point. There are different factions of the sport according to the type of cheese employed. Stilton and Double Gloucester both have their own devotees. There is no sense to it whatsoever. It is an entirely pointless waste of perfectly good food.
There are, or course, many other sports that are equally risible. They each have their ‘merits’ and their own distinct advocates. But as anyone who has sat through five days of a drawn cricket match will tell you, taking sport too seriously can seriously damage your sanity.