1. Extreme Ironing
Extreme Ironing – or EI as it’s called in the business, is not simply seen of as a crazy sport, but as a performance art. The website describes it up as “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.” Competitors have taken their laundry on speed cycles, above mountains during abseiling, on white water rafts, or done whilst break dancing. A new record was achieved in March 2008 when a team of 72 divers concurrently ironed underwater. How did it work, then?
2. Cheese Rolling
Back to Britain, where this bizarre and downright deadly sport sees hundreds of people flinging themselves down a hill for a wheel of cheese - frequently receiving horrible injuries. The events generally take place in Gloucester, but have lately come in British Columbia, where the “Dairy Farmers of Canada” celebrated their first Annual Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival in August. The quickest one to the bottom wins the cheese.
3. Curling
How this lack-lustre ‘sport’ become a medal-worthy pastime, I’ll never know. The purpose of the game is to slide large polished granite stones down ice, guiding them along by sweeping the ice with brooms. Sound bizarre? It is – yet it’s been an Olympic Winter Game sport since 1998.
4. Rock Paper Scissors World Championship
This playground activity, now referred to as Professional RPS by the professionals, has even been aired by Fox Sports Net and sponsored by Bud Light. This year’s American championships culminated to one fortunate winner – Sean Sears – receiving an astonishing $50,000.
5. Air Guitar Championships
This favoured dance-move for all individuals with long hair and huge boots officially became a competitive event back in 1996 in Finland. With restrictions such as “No back-up bands – air or real – are allowed” and “Competitors may finger pick or strum with either electric or acoustic – but all ‘real’ instruments are banned”, it’s evident that these guitar legends take the tournament extremely seriously. This year, the gold winner was Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeie from the US.
6. Nettle-eating Championships
Why would somebody eat nettles? For a competition of course! And where better in the globe to hold such as weird tournament than back in Britain — down south in Dorset. The tournament, which pulls in participants from New York, Australia, Northern Ireland and Belgium, includes eating as many nettles as possible in the span of one hour, with only beer to soothe the stinging mouth. Ouch.
7. The World Beard and Moustache Championships
This beardy weirdy competition gives birth to hundreds of meticulously coiffed guys, all contending for the title of most innovative and precisely shaped facial hair. Entrants include bearded interpretations of the Golden Gate Bridge, Buckingham Palace, or just plain whacky handlebar sculptures. The next tournament will be place on May 23, 2009 in the City of Anchorage, Alaska. Start grooming immediately.
8. World Pea Shooting Championships
Still in the UK, we have competitive pea shooting, which takes place in the hamlet of Witcham. The miniature green missiles are fired using a way of shooters, targeting a soft putty target. The historic event, which originated at a hamlet fair in 1971, is not wasting time locked in the past. Nowadays contestants are utilising laser-guided shooters and home-made pea machine guns.
9. World Gurning Championship
Only in good old Blighty would there be a competitive event of pulling faces. In this age-old rural English sport, entrants must don a horse collar or ‘braffin’ and deform their features in the most mind-boggling manner imaginable — bottom lip over the nose, chin drawn up to ear and eyes totally bulging out.
10. Wife Carrying
For whatever reason, the Finnish chose to design a sport that includes men running over an obstacle course, while carrying their better half. In Sonkajarvi, the birth-place of the event, the lucky winner gets his wife’s weight in beer. Competitions also take place in Monona, Wisconsin and Marquette. But it’s not as simple as heaving your loved one over your shoulder and driving off — numerous styles of carry are practiced: piggyback, fireman’s lift, or Estonian-style, where the woman hangs upside-down with her legs over the husband’s shoulders.