Lew Freedman - Sports Weird-o-Pedia: The Ultimate Book of Surprising, Strange, and Incredibly Bizarre Facts about Sports

CHAPTER 1

WEIRD SPORTS

WIFE CARRYING

We have all heard of the newlywed tradition of carrying a wife across the threshold of the house following a wedding, but in Finland, picking up the Mrs. and carrying her a much longer distance is popular sport.

Wife carrying originated in that Scandinavian country, perhaps in the 800s, though that is murky. Back then, it was called kidnapping when bad men raided villages and stole food and carried off local women. Apparently not every sport has a proud (or legal) origin.

More recently, wife carrying has gained an aura of respectability in the form of an annual world championship contest in Sonkajarvi, Finland. Men throw women over their shoulders and try to run through an 831.7-foot obstacle course as fast as possible. Rather than being derided as criminals, as occurred in the old days, the men are feted like kings, or at least drunkards. First prize is the wifes weight in beer.

While the sport is still referred to as wife carrying, apparently rules have loosened up sufficiently so that contestants must only be a him and a her, regardless of wedding bands being involved or not, though they must be at least 17 years of age.

Just how a dude carries his wife along the course is up to him. Experiments in form efficiency have varied from the piggyback ride to the woman hanging upside down and backward on the mans shoulders, with head and torso draped over his back while wrapping her arms around his waist, labeled Estonian style. Thats guaranteed to leave the Miss or Mrs. dizzy.

While definitely not for everyone, the sport has caught on selectively in other locations, including Estonia, but also in Australia, the United States, England, India, and Hong Kong. While the North American championships take place in Maine, other hotbeds of US wife carrying can be found in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

In at least a single race in England, the roles were reversed, with the woman carrying the man. And once in Finland, a male contender carried another male in drag who stood 7-foot-4 and weighed 308 pounds.

COMPETITIVE EATING

In a world where serious-minded, concerned people say 1 in 9 people go to bed hungry and 34 million children suffer from severe malnutrition, it can easily be argued that the existence of competitive eating as a sport is unseemly. But if anyone can figure out a way to instantly transport the hot dogs devoured on July 4 directly from Coney Island, New York, to Niger, Sudan, or Zambia, they should email the State Department.

If conscience is removed from the equation, many aspects of competitive eating, not only in the flagship event, but as mere slapstick site gags and digestion of statistics, can be viewed as super weird. While no doubt aspects of competitive eating can be construed as being in bad taste, a temporary willing suspension of concern for those less fortunate may leave the observer open to laughs and certainly to disbelief.

George Shea, commissioner of Major League Eating, is a gifted gabber who can rattle off one-liners with the speed of a Gatling gun. In his distinctive straw boater, he is the epitome of a huckster from years gone by, but very much a funny man, as well. As the July 4 master of ceremonies on the boardwalk at Coney Island, Shea is the front man for the all-you-can-eat competition.