Top 10 wacky sports around the world to check out
Online travel adviser Cheapflights (cheapflights.com) has come up with a top 10 list of no-frills, high-adrenalin and wacky sports which might be entertaining.
1. CAMEL RACING
Popular throughout the Middle East as well as Mongolia and Australia, the sport takes place every year from late October to early April. In the dusty desert, camels race along a sand track up to 16 kilometres long.
2. TUNA TOSSING
The Tuna Tossing World Champion-ship occurs annually at the Tunarama Festival in Port Lincoln, Australia. Men and women 16 years and older fight it out to toss their tuna the farthest.
3. GREASY POLE CLIMBING
This messy and challenging sport is a crowd favourite in a number of places including Indonesia, Brazil, the U.K. and the Caribbean. The biggest stage for the sport is the Greasy Pole Com-petition, which takes place every year during St. Peter's Fiesta in Gloucester, Mass. Forty to 50 men aged between 18 and 60 test the slipperiness and attempt to be the first to reach the end of the pole and grab the red flag at the end.
4. CHEESE ROLLING
In a bone-crushing race people run, stumble and slide down a steep hill to catch massive rolls of cheese. The most famous event is Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, held in Gloucestershire, U.K., where competitors vie with eight-pound Double Gloucester cheese rounds.
5. CORN HOLE
A one-handed sport, Corn Hole can be (and most often is) played without ever putting down your beer. How-ever, true competitors in the sport, which is thought to be based on a game created by Native Americans, play in tournaments sanctioned by the American Corn Hole Association. There they vie in two-person or two-team matches.
6. BUZKASHI
Literally translated, it means "goat grabbing." Imagine polo but with one slight modification. The only difference is that in Buzkashi you use the carcass of a goat or calf instead of a ball. The Afghan Olympic Federation has implemented official rules for Buzkashi, the national sport of Afghanistan.
7. BUN CLIMBING
Thousands of locals and tourists gather on the tiny fishing island of Cheung Chau in China to celebrate the festival and watch the bun climbing in amazement. The Bun Mountains are 60-foot-tall steel structures covered with delicious, decorative steamed buns and bamboo scaffolding. Men compete in a race to climb up the towers and grab as many buns as possible. The person with the most buns wins.
8. QUIDDITCH
Yes, we mean the sport Harry Potter and his friends played. Imagine, people running astride broom sticks, working to get a ball through a hoop without getting smashed by an opponent aiming another ball at their heads, dodge ball style. This game now plays out at more than 300 college and high school campuses across the U.S. and 12 other countries.
9. OUTHOUSE RACING
Found through much of the U.S., this is a sport of hometown fun and foolishness. The Australians practice it too, though there it is known as dunny racing. Every second year in September, the town of Winton in the outback of Queensland hosts the Sorbent Australian Dunny Derby. Twenty "dunny jockeys" sit astride dunnies on wheels pulled by a team of four to race to the finish line of a 250-metre track.
10. PUMPKIN CHUNKING
Champions of this autumn sport can send gourds more than 4,000 feet in the air. In fact, the World Record pumpkin flight is more than a mile (5,545.43 feet to be exact). The biggest competition is held annually by the World Championship Pump-kin Chunkin Association in Sussex County, Delaware the first full week-end in November.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
1. CAMEL RACING
Popular throughout the Middle East as well as Mongolia and Australia, the sport takes place every year from late October to early April. In the dusty desert, camels race along a sand track up to 16 kilometres long.
2. TUNA TOSSING
The Tuna Tossing World Champion-ship occurs annually at the Tunarama Festival in Port Lincoln, Australia. Men and women 16 years and older fight it out to toss their tuna the farthest.
3. GREASY POLE CLIMBING
This messy and challenging sport is a crowd favourite in a number of places including Indonesia, Brazil, the U.K. and the Caribbean. The biggest stage for the sport is the Greasy Pole Com-petition, which takes place every year during St. Peter's Fiesta in Gloucester, Mass. Forty to 50 men aged between 18 and 60 test the slipperiness and attempt to be the first to reach the end of the pole and grab the red flag at the end.
4. CHEESE ROLLING
In a bone-crushing race people run, stumble and slide down a steep hill to catch massive rolls of cheese. The most famous event is Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, held in Gloucestershire, U.K., where competitors vie with eight-pound Double Gloucester cheese rounds.
5. CORN HOLE
A one-handed sport, Corn Hole can be (and most often is) played without ever putting down your beer. How-ever, true competitors in the sport, which is thought to be based on a game created by Native Americans, play in tournaments sanctioned by the American Corn Hole Association. There they vie in two-person or two-team matches.
6. BUZKASHI
Literally translated, it means "goat grabbing." Imagine polo but with one slight modification. The only difference is that in Buzkashi you use the carcass of a goat or calf instead of a ball. The Afghan Olympic Federation has implemented official rules for Buzkashi, the national sport of Afghanistan.
7. BUN CLIMBING
Thousands of locals and tourists gather on the tiny fishing island of Cheung Chau in China to celebrate the festival and watch the bun climbing in amazement. The Bun Mountains are 60-foot-tall steel structures covered with delicious, decorative steamed buns and bamboo scaffolding. Men compete in a race to climb up the towers and grab as many buns as possible. The person with the most buns wins.
8. QUIDDITCH
Yes, we mean the sport Harry Potter and his friends played. Imagine, people running astride broom sticks, working to get a ball through a hoop without getting smashed by an opponent aiming another ball at their heads, dodge ball style. This game now plays out at more than 300 college and high school campuses across the U.S. and 12 other countries.
9. OUTHOUSE RACING
Found through much of the U.S., this is a sport of hometown fun and foolishness. The Australians practice it too, though there it is known as dunny racing. Every second year in September, the town of Winton in the outback of Queensland hosts the Sorbent Australian Dunny Derby. Twenty "dunny jockeys" sit astride dunnies on wheels pulled by a team of four to race to the finish line of a 250-metre track.
10. PUMPKIN CHUNKING
Champions of this autumn sport can send gourds more than 4,000 feet in the air. In fact, the World Record pumpkin flight is more than a mile (5,545.43 feet to be exact). The biggest competition is held annually by the World Championship Pump-kin Chunkin Association in Sussex County, Delaware the first full week-end in November.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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