Anything’s a sport, if you’re brave enough. Take any mundane task in life and compete at it with your friends and there you go. You’ve got a brand new sport all to yourself. At least I’m assuming that’s how most of these games were conceived.
Here are 10 of the strangest sports in the world that actually have championships, trophies and the like.
1. Extreme Ironing
Why not? Ironing, as the average bachelor knows, is hard enough to get by. How about you come up with a sport where it’s impossible to get it done right, and then do it right? That’s the extreme ironing championship in a nutshell.
2. Wife Carrying
I really want to know how the feminists see this one. This marathon calls in people from around the world to race through a simple obstacle course. A race carrying your female teammate, of course. The sport was first introduced in Finland, and now there are world championships for it.
3. Bossaball
Kind of an off-shoot of volleyball, bossaball has two teams on either side of the net and the participants can use any part of their body to keep the ball in the air. Each side can bounce the ball up to eight times before shooting it over the net. And there are trampolines involved as well. What?
4. Chess boxing
More interesting than strange, chess boxing is literally just that. The game fuses together two sports, chess and boxing, and each player/fighter has to fight a for specified amount of time in the ring and immediately continue a game of chess with his opponent. Brains and brawn, we say!
5. Bed Racing
What elaboration do you really need for something like this? This is literally the simplest and weirdest sport on the list. Something an infant probably came up with. Teams attach wheels to their beds with one ‘driver’ that needs to be on it, and the race begins. That’s it!
6. Toe Wrestling
Basically thumb wrestling, but with your toes. The game is believed to have been invented by four drinkers in England who were dejected by the fact that the UK had no world champions, in 1974. Of course, they decided to create their own sport. Who knew? It now has a world championship. The Olympic community, however, rejected to include the game. Bummer!
7. World Beard and Moustache Championships
Here’s one sport that’s not meant for everyone. Beginning in 2004, the World Beard and Moustache Association has been conducting the evaluation of some of the most glorious beards and moustaches that the world has ever seen in a biennial championship. Men from around the world compete with their glorious face manes for the recognition of the most insane beard in the world.
8. Quidditch World Cup
Someone had to do it. So the International Quidditch Association – yes, there is one – has been conducting the Quidditch world championships every second year. In this ‘sport’, men and women of all ages come together to geek the hell out, in a rugby-like game with brooms and a ball.
9. Darwin Beer Can Regatta
The Darwin Beer Can Regatta is a festive event that has been conducted annually since 1974 in Australia. The event is basically a boat race, where the boats are completely made of beer cans. Winners are alcoholics, of course.
10. Worm Charming
Don’t be fooled. This one requires science. Worm charming is sport that where players use instruments, sounds and all other techniques to entice worms from their burrows. The act itself used to be performed, back in the day, to collect bait for fishing but soon became an athletic phenomenon.
