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Humans are, by nature, competitive animals. There is
seemingly no activity which humans will not enjoy more by making it into
a competition. To the winner goes the glory and the pride of knowing you
are the best. Though it might be hard for others to understand how you
became the best in the following unusual competitions – and some may
wonder why on earth you would want to.
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Bog Snorkeling
Can’t get enough swamp sports? Then head to the Waen Rhydd peat bog,
near Llanwrtyd Wells in mid Wales. There you can catch the World Bog
Snorkleling Championship, where competitors will swim twice through a 60
yard trench cut in a peat bog while wearing snorkels and flippers. Usual
swimming strokes are not allowed, instead competitors must use their
flippers to do all the swimming for them. The swimmer with the fastest
time wins. |
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The Cheese Rolling in Gloucestershire
An eight-pound Double Gloucestershire cheese wheel rolls down a hill.
Your job: get the cheese. The downside: by joining dozens in the pursuit
down a two-hundred-meter long hill (which is steep and inevitably
muddy), you stand an excellent chance of getting hurt, with the damage
ranging from bruises to spinal injuries. Then again, that’s a lot of
cheese. |
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These Boots Are Made for Throwing
If you regularly take off your shoes after a long day at work and toss
them somewhere in the house, have we got a sport for you. The annual
Boot-Throwing World Championship will kick off July 8 in Viljandi,
Estonia, for a fierce two-day competition. The first world championship
was held in Finland in 1992 and since then, boot-throwing has become a
serious sport. In fact, boot-throwing athletes have been caught taking
performance-enhancing drugs and now there are regulations against them. |
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Chess Boxing
For those who've always wondered, "Who's tougher: Muhammad Ali or Gary
Kasparov?" it's now possible to get an answer. Contestants alternate
between playing chess and boxing until there's a checkmate, a knockout,
or Mike Tyson suddenly jams a rook deep into the eye of his opponent. |
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The high heeled sprinters
IT was survival of the fittest and most stylish in Moscow as women put
on their sturdiest heels to compete in a high-heeled shoes race.
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