7 of the weirdest sports in the world
Miscellaneous / / February 04, 2022
These include a giant pumpkin regatta, toe wrestling and real Muggle Quidditch.
1. Rowing on pumpkin kayaks
It is unlikely that anyone can be surprised by racing on ordinary kayaks or kayaks. How about growing your own boat before you get in it? Grow literally - from a seed.
Yes, paddling giant pumpkins is an internationally recognized water sport.
Races are held annually in the US and Canada. The most popular event is the Windsor Pumpkin Race, which starts in October at Pesakid Lake.
Getting ready for the regatta in advanceHow Far Could You Paddle in a Pumpkin? /National Geographicby growing suitable pumpkins.
average fetusThe Wide World of Weird Sports / TIME for a regatta, it weighs something like 800 pounds, that is, 350 kilograms. And this is not so much: the mass of the heaviest pumpkinsMonster pumpkin heavier than a small car breaks world record / Guinness World Records from the Guinness Book of Records - 2.7 tons. Of course, such a regatta will not be accepted, it's like an armadillo surrounded by inflatable boats.
Naturally, when the inside of the pumpkin is hollowed out so that there is room to sit, it will become much lighter and will float well. And if you put a motor on it, you can take part in motor races on pumpkins. There are those too.
2. Underwater hockey
As you know, real men play hockey. But there are guys for whom even this sport is not exciting enough. Simple injuries, blows, falls and fractures in regular hockey do not give them as much thrill as the possibility of drowning.
Underwater hockey was invented in England in the 1950s by Alan Blake, owner of the Sub-Aqua Club. He named the game Octopush.
The rules are similar to regular hockey, only here the match is played under water, at the bottom of the pool. There are two teams, a goal, sticks (only here they are short to hold with one hand) and a puck.
Instead of protective equipment, participants have breathing masks and fins. The task is the same - to score as many goals as possible in the opponent's goal.
Competitions consistInternational Rules for Underwater Hockey Vol. 2/CMAS UWHC of two 15-minute periods and a 3-minute rest break. The match is judged by two underwater referees in diving equipment and one referee on the surface.
If you think this sport is not brutal enough, keep in mind that there is a more severe version of it - ice hockey. It is played at the bottom of frozen ponds.
Underwater hockey popularUnderwater Hockey Is a Legitimate Sport (Seriously, It Is) / The Atlantic in many countries, championships are regularly held on it. Spectators watch matches either through special underwater cameras in real time, or through viewing windows, if the pool is equipped with such.
3. Veloball
What happens if football is crossed with cycling? Get a cycleball, or veloballFor Multisport Madness, Cycleball Takes the Crown / WIRED. In this game, two teams of two, five or six people try to score a goal against each other. They only do it while sitting on bicycles.
Do not touch the ball with your feet or hands. It is allowed to push it with the front or rear wheel of the bicycle, as well as with the body or head.
Deliberate collision, grasping the opponent with hands, support on the goal post and entry into the penalty area are prohibited. The match is watched by a panel of chief referee, two referees at the gate, secretary and timekeeper.
Even though the idea of playing soccer on a bike seems pretty crazy, it is a respected sport with a long history. Veloball appeared at the end of the 19th century in the United States, but gained great popularity in Europe, in particular in Germany, where it is called radball.
Inventor of the game countsJ. Heijmans, B. Mallon. Historical Dictionary of Cycling famous American cyclist Nick Kaufman. According to legend, during a bike ride, a small pug threw himself under the wheels. The trickster managed to keep his balance and not fall on the dog. He famously picked up the pug with the front wheel and drove it off the road, and he was not injured. Kaufman came up with the idea that the same thing is much easier and safer to do with the ball.
The Cycleball World Cup has been held annually since 2002.
4. Toe wrestling
Let's move on to something more original. Arm wrestling, or arm strength competition, is familiar to all of us. There are also varieties of it. Children or lovers of showing off sometimes arrange competitions, clinging not with their palms, but with their index or thumbs.
But the athletes from England went the furthest. In 1976, a Devonshire pub owner invented foot wrestling.
Since then, it has been a kind of national sport in Britain.
Competitors in this fight clingToe Wrestling: 'The One Sport That England Always Wins At' / HuffPost one after the other with the thumbs and place the feet between two vertical planks. The task is to press the opponent's foot to one of them and not break the rules.
There are two types of wrestling - with socks and without socks. The latter is more popular; championships have been regularly held on it for more than 40 years. A real record in toe wrestling setMeet Alan 'Nasty' Nash, 14-time toe wrestling world champion / CBC Radio an athlete named Alan Nash, who has already confirmed his world title 14 times.
Foot wrestling is a very intense sport that requires special training. In addition, it is very traumatic: competitors often accidentally break each other's toes. The same Nash, according to him recognitionMeet Alan 'Nasty' Nash, 14-time toe wrestling world champion / CBC Radio, once broke four toes in the semi-finals, but this did not stop him from continuing to compete.
5. Acrobatics on the wing of a flying plane
Jokes aside, these are really dangerous tricks. A biplane plane is flying, doing all sorts of aerobatics (well, within the limits of its capabilities), and on its wing a stuntman walks and does various pirouettes.
Wingwalking as an extreme sport originated in the United States as early as the 1920s. Now in the world there are only five dozen acrobats who riskThe art of aerobatic wing walking / The Guardian put on such shows.
By the way, Elon Musk is somehow a little dabbledWatch Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ‘Wing It’ / ABC News standing on the wing of a flying biplane. Of course, he didn’t do rolls and handstands like the pros, but for an amateur, he held up quite well.
6. Volcanoboarding
Video snippet: Earth Titan / YouTube
Banal skiing from the hill does not surprise anyone. How about driving off a volcano? Naturally, the latter must be active, otherwise it is not interesting.
In Nicaragua, this is a fairly popular type of extreme sportsWhat's it like to go volcano boarding in Nicaragua? / The Independent for tourists. So far, only one volcano is open for visiting there - Cerro Negro, or Black Mountain. They used to ride down on surfboards or even old mattresses, but now special boards for sandy surfaces are in demand.
Keep in mind, the speed record on Cerro Negro is 95 kilometers per hour.
Sliding down a 728-meter slope covered in volcanic ash, smearing yourself black and almost breaking your neck - what could be more fun?
7. Quidditch
All fans of the magical universe of Harry Potter know the rules of the favorite game of wizards - Quidditch. Participants fly on broomsticks. Hunters shoot goals into pole-mounted rings, beaters try to knock down enemy players, and catchers seek out the golden flying snitch to quickly win the match.
Well, flying broomsticks haven't been delivered to Muggles yet. But all the other rules of real Quidditch exactly repeat those invented by Rowling.
Two schools of Muggle Quidditch emerged independently of each other in Russia and the United States. Ground Quidditch in the West came up withReal-life Quidditch: No flying, but lots of strategy, tackling and athleticism / Chicago Tribune in 2005, students at Middlebury College, Vermont. Fans in Russia developedQuidditch / Quidditch.ru own Quidditch based on handball. Since then, many varieties of the game have appeared.
There is even a 16-team professional Quidditch league in the US, and the game regularly hosts international competitions.
It all looks something like this: players run around the field with brooms between their legs (in the Russian version, this convention was abandoned) and try to score a goal with their hands in three vertical rings on the opponent's side. Dodgeballs throw bludgers at opponents to thwart them. And the Seekers are jumping around in this bacchanalia and trying to catch a tennis ball that mimics the Snitch.
True, here the Americans and Russians have certain differences in the rules. In the West dressed in gold operatorQuidditch is real, and it wants to go pro / CNN Snitch (yes, that's what this neutral player is called) runs with a sock tied to his belt, where they put the ball, and the catchers must take this snitch away from him. And in Russian Quidditch operators standQuidditch Rules / Quidditch outside the playing area and throw the snitch across the field, and the catchers must grab it in the air.
True, the fate of this sport, at least in Western countries, is in question. Due to the controversial statements of JK Rowling, two leagues from the USA US Quidditch (USQ) and Major League Quidditch (MLQ) decidedQuidditch game famous for "Harry Potter" wants to be renamed because of J.K. Rowling's words about transgender people / BBC News change the name of his sport to distance himself from the disgraced writer.
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