Features

Maybe you were always the last picked for teams at school. Maybe you (shh, not too loudly) hate rugby. Maybe you’ve never quite found your athletic niche. Never fear! Phoebe Harrop has compiled an alphabet of unusual sports and sports events is here to match-make even the most unusual individual with their destined sporting pursuit. Just remember: go hard or go home.
A is for apple race: with minimal physical exertion/skill required, this is Rotary fundraising innovation at its best. Hundreds of presold apples are released into some river in Tasmania, and “race” a full 300m downstream to the finish line.
 
B is for beerpong: a scarfie favourite and fond Law Camp memory for many, we’re all familiar with this heady combination of ping pong and cheap piss. Competitors bounce balls across a table with the aim of landing the ball in one of the ten or so cups of beer at the other end. Rules vary, but most versions ensure the players end up gettin’ slizzered.
 
C is for chess-boxing: a combination of boxing, that badass sport of backstreet alleys, and chess, that erudite game played best by cardigan-wearing Russians and nightmare-inducingly enshrined in the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. In chess boxing, these two formidable pursuits are unified with rounds alternating between four-minute speed chess games and two-minute boxing bouts. Checkmate or KO wins the game.
 
D is for dwarf-tossing: this sport comes in two variants of equal political incorrectness: the throwing of a small person dressed in velcro against a velcro wall, and a simple throw-that-midget-as-far-as-you-can competition. Apparently they use squishy mats for the latter, luckily.
 
E is for elephant polo: it’s like horse polo, but on elephants! Not quite as fast-paced and exciting, but much more exotic. And it’s even more of a team sport: each elephant has two riders, one being a “professional handler” and the other responsible for actually hitting the ball thing. Web research suggests that this sport is alive and well in New Zealand.
 
F is for Finnish Sauna Olympics: it was hot, sweaty, and more than a little homosexually suggestive: multiple naked men trying to outwit, outplay and outlast each other at 110 degrees celcius. I write in the past-tense because, unfortunately, the competition was brought to an end last year after a finalist died and another came close to death. Practice yourself at one of OUSA’s very own clothing optional sauna sessions.
G is for Gloucester cheese-rolling: crazy English people chase cheese down a hill (not realising they can buy it for 10 quid or so at their local Tesco). And 15,000 people go along to watch. That’s pretty much it. A (marginally) healthier alternative to the Cadbury Jaffa race down Baldwin Street perhaps?
H is for horse vs man marathon: you might think that pitting human beings against horses would be a fairly one-sided competition. But every July in Wales (where else?), that’s exactly what happens. And sometimes people even win! Okay, twice in the competition’s thirty-year history. But still! That’s impressive!
 
I is for ironing…extreme ironing, that is: this “sport” is self-proclaimedly “exciting, challenging and dangerous”. Competitors aim to iron while mountain climbing, water skiing, skydiving etc. The sport’s organisers describe it as "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt." Their mothers must be so proud.
J is for joggling: jogging + juggling = the ultimate in circus athletics. Heard of Owen Morse? Neither had I. He holds the Guinness World Record for jogging 100 metres while juggling 5 balls, in only 13.8 seconds. The current world best time for a joggling marathon is 2:50:09, achieved by Canadian Michal Kapral in September, 2000.
 
K is for kabbadi: the national sport of Bangladesh that’s pretty much a game of Seaweed involving men in tight pants. Teams send “raiders” across the opposite team, with the aim being to tag as many opponents as possible before returning to the home half. While in enemy territory, the raider must continually chant “kabbadi” to prove he’s holding his breath. Even Australia has a national team, but having never won a world championship, this may be the one sport they’re not actually that good at.
 
L is for lawn-mower racing: invented by some poor English blokes who couldn’t afford to get into motor-racing with cars, this event has taken off. It even sports (pun intended) its own video game: Lawnmower Racing Mania 2007.
 
M is for mud snorkeling: another bizarre event dreamt up by the Welsh that sees competitors swim 120 yards in smelly, muddy, bog, with no traditional swimming strokes allowed.
 
N is for nude sports: a hark back to the original Olympics (in which all athletes competed naked), modern nude sports are surprisingly common around our own fair Dunedin, notably at the annual Nude Rugby International match held at Logan Park, or on Castle Street on an average Saturday night.
 
O is for oil wrestling: the name says it all really. Like mud wrestling, or jelly wrestling, but somewhat more…sensual.
 
P is for poohsticks: the official sport of Winnie the Pooh, this was never going to be a particularly athletic pursuit. Poohsticks involves dropping a stick from the upstream side of a bridge, and the person whose stick makes it to the downstream side first is the winner. Often, this person is a small child.
 
Q is for quoits: according to the United States Quoiting Association (I didn’t know “quoiting” was a word either), this sport has its origins in Ancient Greece, where poor people who couldn’t afford discuses would get their kicks by competing to throw horseshoes over a distant target. A riotously popular version of the sport, which by now involved rings rather than horseshoes, was banned by two English kings because it was diverting too much attention away from archery and had a “seedy character”.
 
R is for redneck games: every year in East Dublin, Georgia, self-proclaimed rednecks gather to compete in such games as toilet seat throwing, hubcap hurling and mud pit belly flopping. The trophy? A crushed beer can mounted on a plaque.
 
S is for sumo-suit athletics: participants dress up in fat-suits of sumo wrestler proportions then compete, not in sumo wrestling itself, but intriguingly in standard Olympic athletic events such as 100m sprint, hurdles, long jump etc.
 
T is for toe-wrestling: again, fairly self-explanatory. Every July, the fiercest, most formidable toes in England take each other on for the title of World Champion Toe Wrestler. No hands, or sobriety, allowed.
 
U is for unicycle hockey: a summer alternative to ice hockey, with the added entertainment of people contending with unicycles (hey bro, where’s your other wheel?). Unlike ice hockey though, there’s no physical contact allowed, so the aspect of violence-veneered-lightly-by-sport is somewhat reduced. Nevertheless, it’s popular enough that Germany and England have national leagues.
 
V is for varpa: Varpa is to the Swedes what petanque is to the French. It is the most important sport played on the Swedish island of Gotland, and indeed only played on the island of Gotland.
 
W is for wife-carrying championships: in Finland every year, men compete to complete an obstacle course in the quickest time while carrying their wives. In fact, the woman need not be the man’s wife, and can be “his own, the neighbour’s, or one found further afield”, but must be at least 17 years old. Regulations state there must be two dry obstacles and one wet, and that all the women must be at least 49 kg. And what prize does the winner get for his troubles? His wife’s weight in beer.
 
X is for X-treme limbo skating:  a hit among flexible Indians, this sport involves the seemingly impossible task of roller skating under cars. Requiring strength, balance and an ounce of crazy, this is not your average Saturday morning sport. Alarmingly, a six-year-old boy - Aniket Chindak - holds the unofficial world record for limbo-skating under 57 cars in a row.
 
Y is for yoyo: we all remember the 1990s comeback of the yoyo, sparked by a “techincal renaissance” in yoyo building materials, making it even easier to walk that dog. But competitive yoyo-ing didn’t die with the new millennium and is in fact still alive and well. Yoyo competitions normally consists of two parts, a set of compulsory tricks and freestyle, with points scored for each.
 
Z is for Zorb: just one of a host of activities that await you in Rotorua, the Zorb is a Kiwi invention that involves rolling down a hill in a giant plastic ball, making one feel more or less like a human hamster.