Sports you’ve never heard of: Royal Shrovetide Football
Royal Shrovetide Football is an epic sport played by every man, woman and child of the small village of Ashbourne. The game is split into two eight-hour halves starting at 2 p.m. and ending at 10 p.m. The goals are old mills positioned three miles apart called Clifton and Sturston. Shrovetide Football is played once a year, the first half on Shrove Tuesday, the first day of Lent and the second half on Ash Wednesday, which is 46 days before Easter.
Taze me out at the ball game
Taser ball is the latest in a long lineage of increasingly “extreme” 21st century sports seemingly designed to try the patience of the public safety commissioner.
Sports you’ve never heard of: bunny show jumping
Bunny show jumping, according to the Canadian Rabbit Hopping Club, first began as Kaninhoppning in Sweden in the late 1970s, with a club beginning to compete within their small group. But, as rabbit jumping became more and more popular, these small, disorganized groups of jumpers began to communicate, and soon merged to create the first group: the Swedish Federation of Rabbit Jumping in 1994.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Camogie
Camogie, just like hurling, originated in Ireland and was formerly called “camoguidheacht.” Hurling and Camogie are the two official sports of Ireland.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Extreme ironing
Essentially, if a person wants to take part in the sport of Extreme Ironing (EI) all they need are a few key pieces of equipment. For starters, you need something to iron, an ironing board, an iron, a camera and perhaps someone to take a picture of you in the act. From here, Extreme Ironing allows for the imagination to run wild. Whether you are taking part in the sport on your own, or you chose to elect an entire team, how extreme you choose to be is up to your comfort level. In the past, participants have been known to climb to the top of mountains to iron, dive deep into the ocean and eradicate wrinkles or scale buildings in order to steam-rid their creases and crinkles.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Buzkashi
What do you get when you take the headless corpse of a goat, two teams of 10 horses and riders with whips and lots and lots of testosterone? If you guessed “Buzkashi,” the national sport of Afghanistan, you can stop reading right here. If you said “what?”, then read on.
Sports you’ve never heard of: cell phone toss
What started in Finland as a sport with just a few fans has grown to become a sport enjoyed throughout Europe and the United States. There are annual world championships held in Savonlinna, Finland, where the best throwers congregate to compete for the title of “the person that throws the cell phone really, really, really far”. The 2011 World Championships attracted competitors from Australia, Finland, Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
Sports you’ve never heard of: ice golf
Let me answer your first question; they use coloured balls to avoid losing them in the snow. Your second question: the “green” is referred to as the “white.” Ice golf has been around for centuries. It was first played, as far as we know, back in the 17th century in Holland. Originally called “kolven”, the game was played on frozen canals and players used clubs to get a ball into a hole in the ice – much like regular golf.
Sports you’ve never heard of: worm charming
The Oxford Dictionary defines “worm charming” as, “the sport of enticing worms from their burrows”. Wow, such detail has inspired me to dig further into the sport of worm charming.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Cardboard tube fighting
Cardboard tube fighting is one of the world’s lesser-known sports and some say perhaps that’s for good reason. Let me assure you that cardboard tube fighting is a legitimate sport.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Frog Jumping
While the competition is fierce, the issue of frog care is an important part of the frog jumping sport and there has been an official “frog welfare policy” in place since 1997. Frog jockeys or any member of the frog handling team that violates the policy or in any way abuses the competitors face banishment from the sport. The competition organizers are anticipating 10,000 frog competitors for the 2012 event.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Ultramarathon running
An ultramarathon, by definition, is any running race over the marathon distance of 42 km. The most common distances are 50 km, 100 km, 50 miles (about 80 km), and 100 miles (about 160 km). The sport of ultramarathon running exists around the world, and you can find ultramarathon events worldwide (even in Antarctica!).
The Bikram yoga craze
Lim Hing explained how Bikram yoga is a sequence of 26 postures and two breathing exercises. Each posture prepares you for the next, often more challenging posture. It’s the same sequence of postures and breathing exercises every time. The theory is that by doing the same thing class after class your focus is not learning the techniques of new postures, but rather focusing on perfecting the postures you already know. It all takes place in a heated room with a wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors in front of you. “You see yourself in the mirror and you can’t really escape from yourself and [that] requires you to focus,” said Lim Hing.
Backwater brilliance: The undiscovered majesty of freestyle canoe
On placid lakes and untamed streams across North America, a small but impassioned group of flat-water aficionados are dedicated to mastering the art of obedience lessons for the canoe. Practitioners learn moves like the Axle, Sideslip, Christie and Wedge before putting it all together and setting it to music. It’s the dance sensation that’s sweeping the nation.
Anyone for Pesäpallo?
Pesäpallo itself is colloquially known as pesis and the two terms are used interchangeably among most enthusiasts. Pesis is a hybrid of American baseball and traditional European ball and bat games. It’s also the national sport of Finland.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Real Tennis
Real tennis is a sport originating in France in the 16th century. When real tennis first came into popularity it was promoted mainly by the French monarchy, followed by the English monarchy. As a result of the royal interest, it came to be known as a ‘sport of kings’. And because everyone wants to be just like the royals, the sport caught on.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Major League Eating
Competitive eating is quite simple: whoever eats the most, in a given time frame, wins. There are, however, some complexities to the sport.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Planking
Are you looking for a summer sport that won’t make you break a sweat? Are you looking for an activity that anyone can do, regardless of age or capability? Are you looking to be involved in the art of doing nothing at all, while still calling it an activity? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then planking might be the sport for you!
Sports you’ve never heard of: The World Rock Paper Scissors Championships
Do you seek the fame and glory of professional sports but feel more at home handling a doughnut than a football? Are you a failed hand model looking for a pastime that showcases the true beauty of your assets? Or, has your extensive collection of locks of celebrity hair left you with a looming debt that you’re looking to pay off? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may want to look into the World Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) Championships, an annual competition that brings together the world’s best and brightest to compete for $10,000 total prize money, as well as international recognition and a boost in the number and quality of one’s romantic partners.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Competitive facial hair styling
Where does a man with a wild and glorious mane of facial hair, a competitive streak, and absolutely no athletic abilities fit into the wonderful world of sports? Have no fear, my furry companions, for we have found just the sport for you: the World Beard and Moustache Championships.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Tough guy competition
Some would argue that there is no universal standard for toughness: everybody has their own personal strengths and weaknesses. The Tough Guy Competition, however, might be as close to that standard as possible. Contestants face fire, ice cold water, heights, underground tunnels, barbed wire, cross country running, mud crawling, rope climbing, and electric shocks. In fact, competitors need to sign a “death warrant” before they can even start the race.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Hashing
Today, in a time when humankind is increasingly concerned with toeing the line and conforming to the status quo, there exists a certain set of people who choose to do things differently. This new mindset includes the thousands of people who travel yearly to mammoth party festivals such as Burning Man. It includes people who live on communes, people who dress like clowns on the weekend for fun, and people who get together with hundreds of strangers and go on pub crawls dressed as Santa Claus.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Air Sex
Immature (and virginal) axe-slinging tweens have been comparing guitar playing to the act of sex with a nudge and a grin since the instrument was invented, so it seemed only a matter of time before air guitar was taken to the next level as well. And suddenly, lo and behold, along came the sport that answered everyone’s prayers: air sex.
Sports you’ve never heard of: Aussie Rules Football
Leave it to the Australians to take a game and make it criminally violent. Aussie Rules Football is a baffling combination of soccer, rugby, basketball, and, occasionally, UFC fighting. Essentially, the goal of the game is to either carry or kick the ball between the goal posts – a classic sporting concept. Except that this sport has earned its nickname, Aussie No Rules Footy. You can do basically anything you want to get the ball across the line, or to stop the opposite team from doing so. Each team plays with 18 men on the field at a time, although they do not play so much as they engage in brutal, body-crushing warfare. To picture a typical Aussie Rules match, imagine a good old game of American football, but subtract all the pads and steroids, and add in a different ball and a lot more hitting.
