Unusual Sports, UWH makes the list - Melbourne Age

thanks to Michela for forwarding this,

THE AGE - December 3, 2006
www.theage.com.au/news/general/really-unusual-
sports/2006/12/02/1164777846113.html

Page 2 of 3 | Single page

1. Chessboxing
Aside from the running, jumping and combat disciplines, most sports
make little or no sense. Even soccer, most basic of the team games, is
in many ways weird and arbitrary; why shouldn't we be allowed to use
our hands?

Still, some sports are much stranger than others, and they don't come
much more peculiar than chessboxing. Inspired by a cult comic book,
bouts last 11 rounds, six of chess (four minutes each) and fi ve of
boxing (two minutes). Wins come by checkmate, knockout, points
decision or missing the time limit in a chess round, with the idea
being to train individuals who can think and fight in equal measure.

The curious hybrid is gaining a moderate following in Europe and the
US, and has lofty goals indeed. The sport's creator, conceptual artist
Iepe Rubingh, told ESPN.com: "The future chessboxer will be a
grandmaster and a professional boxer. Chessboxing could even solve the
problem in the Middle East. I want to hold a chessboxing match between
an Israeli and a Palestinian, and the winner will get to decide what
happens to Israel."

2. Cheese rolling
Mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a healthy body) is the
catchcry of chessboxing. Presumably the opposite applies to cheese
rolling, the rather mad annual event in Gloucestershire that routinely
sends a significant number of entrants to hospital (33 out of 50 in
one year).

The premise is simple: 15 people at a time chase a round, three-
kilogram cheese down a very, very steep hill, and the winner keeps the
cheese. One first-time runner wrote in his blog that he took six steps
before "things went grass, sky, grass, sky, grass, sky. The next thing
I knew I was at the base of the hill standing next to a guy with what
looked to be a broken leg". No one is sure how or why cheese rolling
got started, or even why it continues, but it has been going on for at
least 400 years.

This chronically unsafe activity has also damaged spectators over the
years, with several requiring treatment after being hit by a 100 km/h
cheese.

3. The tough guy
The only problem masochists could have with cheese rolling is that
it's over far too quickly. Not so the tough guy, an absurdly gruelling
English event that lasts between 90 minutes and five hours, depending
on your fitness and pain threshold. Held biannually to raise money for
charity, it starts with a lengthy cross-country run before taking the
2000-4000 starters into the obstacle course from hell. Features of the
charmingly named "Killing Fields" include electric fences, underground
and underwater tunnels, fire pits, barbed wire and acres of mud. The
summer race is longer and features vicious nettle patches, but the
winter version is more arduous because of temperatures that can fall
well below freezing.

Officially endorsed training methods, which are hopefully tongue in
cheek, including running with frozen peas down your shorts and
climbing head first into a wheelie bin, closing the lid and waiting
five minutes before wriggling out.

4. Wife carrying
Wife carrying is just as silly a pastime as the tough guy, although
undoubtedly less punishing (providing you don't drop the wife too
often, of course). As the name suggests, you lug a spouse over a
rugged 250-metre course, with the fastest time winning. To ensure
fairness, there is a minimum wifely weight of 49 kilograms.

Wikipedia, the list-maker's friend, says "the sport originated as a
joke in Finland, supposedly reminiscent of a past in which men courted
women by running to their village, picking them up, and carrying them
off".

Clearly this atavistic pursuit struck a chord, as there is now a North
American championship along with the annual world championship in
Finland.

Noted carriers include Dennis Rodman, who "borrowed" a wife for the
2005 world titles. Prizes are generous, with the champion receiving
the wife's weight in beer, and, intriguingly, "a bag full of
wifecarrying products".

5. Underwater hockey
A sport that actually looks like it might be fun to play, as well as
being quite offbeat, is underwater hockey. As the name suggests, it is
similar to hockey, with the aim being to whack a 1.5 kilogram lead
puck into your opponent's goal using a short, hooked stick.
Competitors wear masks, snorkels and fins and a thick glove to protect
them from the puck and the pool bottom. Each team has six players in
the water and up to four substitutes.

The game was developed in the 1950s by the British Navy to keep their
divers fit, and has a reasonably loyal following in Australia.
Strategy is said to be very important, as is remembering to come to
the surface to breathe on a regular basis.

6. Trugo
While a lot of perplexed visitors will tell you that Australian rules
is the oddest team game on earth, Melbourne boasts an even better
candidate for entry into the weird sport hall of fame. Trugo was
created by workers at the Newport railyards in the 1920s and was first
played as a formal sport in 1925. A sort of hybrid between croquet and
lawn bowls, participants use a mallet to whack a round rubber disk
(the "wheel") at a set of goals 20 to 30 metres away. It is played in
teams and matches can last around 90 minutes.

The game never caught the public imagination outside Melbourne, but it
has survived into the 21st century thanks to a handful of diehards in
the inner northern and western suburbs. Accepted wisdom is the sport's
name came from the railyards, where workers would describe a goal as
a "true go".

7. Kabaddi
Like underwater hockey, a big part of kabaddi is breath control.
Unlike underwater hockey, kabaddi is played on dry land and closely
resembles a grown-up version of British bulldog. A kabaddi court is
12.5 metres by 10 metres, divided into halves.

Each half is occupied by a team of seven, which takes turns sending a
raider into opposition territory. The raider tries to touch as many
opponents as possible and return to his half in one breath — to prove
it he must continually chant a word ("kabaddi" in the Indian form of
the game, hence the name).

The raided team tries to prevent the interloper returning before he
must breathe. If they cannot, any player the raider has touched is out
of the game. Speed, power and big lungs are essential.

Kabaddi is an ancient game that requires little space and no equipment
and is very popular in south Asia, where top players can earn a
handsome living. There are several references to kabaddi being a
demonstration sport at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but, sadly, Adolf
Hitler's opinion of it was not recorded.

8. Buzkashi
The game that has been said to capture the spirit of Afghanistan is
buzkashi, which could loosely be described as "carcase polo". The aim
is to seize a medium-sized decapitated animal (generally a goat, sheep
or calf), ride around a series of obstacles and deposit it in a circle.

Simple enough, if several hundred other crazy brave expert horsemen
weren't trying to do exactly the same thing. As one correspondent
wrote: "It certainly has some striking similarities to the country's
turbulent politics: too many players, too few rules and regular
confusion about who is in control."

The loathsome Taliban regime suppressed the sport, along with almost
everything else, and one of the first things Afghans did after their
liberation (or at least their return to customary state of anarchy)
was to recommence regular buzkashi matches.

9. Bog snorkelling
When an Australian town wants to put itself on the map, it builds a
Big Pineapple/ Avocado/Cow/Earthworm/Lobster etc etc. The British
equivalent seems to be to invent a bizarre sporting event.

Hence the international extreme bog snorkelling championship, held
annually in the tiny Welsh village of Llanwrtyd Wells. There's nothing
complicated about it — just don mask, snorkel and fins and do two laps
of a 60-metre trench cut through a dense peat bog. The only trick is
you can't use a recognisable swimming stroke.

It's cold, smelly and strangely popular, to the extent there is now a
bog snorkelling mountain bike race and bog triathlon on offer. The
mountain bike event sounds particularly daft, as competitors ride a
specially weighted bike along the bottom of a bog pond with only the
top of their snorkel breaking the water.

10. Curling
Despite a strong push from the extreme ironing lobby group, the gong
for the quirkiest sport involving a common domestic appliance goes to
curling. Basically lawn bowls on ice, what sets it apart is the
frantic application of brooms by the team sliding their rock at the
target (or "house"). To untrained eyes, which are mostly those not
belonging to Canadians, this makes curling look like the only Olympic
sport in which the athletes have to clean up after themselves.

What the sweeping actually does is melt the top of the ice,
maintaining the rock's momentum and straightening its line. Curling
requires regular training, a high degree of skill and an impeccable
grasp of tactics, but to most it will always be known as that "weird
sport with the brooms".

__________________
Underwater Hockey Rules!

Good one!

I have a quote on my desk here that came out of a column in the West Australian newspaper some time last year.

"Underwater hockey, the obscure sport in which the main tactic is: 'Do I want to score a goal or breathe'?" - Humorist Drew Curtis.

Excellent Gav.

Can you post that in this category but in a new thread so it can be easily found.

__________________
Slayer of Trolls amongst other things.
Made for the Love of a Good Woman, and not a bad little player too ;-)
Chumba Concept Salon
Professional Hair Stylist

Nice to see we're in the top ten of something. Not sure if it's just me or does everyone know of at least one other of these activities. I have heard of 4 of the 10. Should I get a life...

No Duck I don't think that makes you weird. I've heard of 5 including UWH, but that could be due to reading a few too many Metros on the way to and from work.

An ex boss of mine in Aus actually competed in the Bog Snorkelling years ago and one of my current colleagues represents Scotland in Curling. I'd love to give some of them ago, but maybe not riding around with headless goats.

One of the women that play here in Perth is a former World Bog Snorkelling Champion too!