- Can you beat the guy who was covered in more than half a million bees?
So, you want to be a champion. Unfortunately, you’re just not that good at traditional sports, games, and such.
Well, don’t fret! People have and will compete in absolutely anything, so there must be a contest out there that’s perfect for your skill set — no matter how bizarre.
We’ve talked about strange world championships years ago. However, it’s just one of those topics that just keeps on giving, so we figured another look was in order.
So, here are another six odd contests and championships for you to try and win.
1. Mobile Phone Throwing
Finland is no stranger to bizarre sports, as their annual wife-carrying world championships prove. The Nordic country is (or was) also famous for the indestructible Nokia cell phones, so it kind of makes sense that they’d also come up mobile phone throwing.
The core idea of the contest is very simple — fling a cell phone farther away than the others and you win. Yet, there are multiple categories for phone size and style, according to the official rules.
In the Original style, you must use a basic over-the-shoulder throw and you’re awarded points based on the length of the throw. In Freestyle, you can toss the phone in any way you wish, and you can get extra points for inventive and flashy performances. There are also single and team categories for both styles.
Sadly, the official mobile phone throwing championships in Finland seem to have gone the way of the dodo. But the sport lives on, as the many phone tossing competitions organized around the world show.
2. Bog Snorkeling
Regular snorkeling is pretty boring. You’ll just swim through pristine waters. Wouldn’t you rather crawl through a horrible soup of mud, muck, and sludge?
Yes, if you ask the Welsh. The annual bog snorkeling championships takes place every year in the central Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells.
The contestants much swim two lengths of a 60-yard lane cut into the Waen Rydd peat bog. Around 150 competitors show up every year to drag themselves through the filth.
And they do it fast, too. The winners in both men’s and women’s categories regularly finish in around a minute and a half.
3. Dog Grooming
Dog beauty contests are nothing new, but in those cases, the fussy grooming usually happens before the competition. However, in the World Dog Grooming Championships, the grooming is the competition.
There are plenty of categories in the competition. The participating teams compete in different styles, there are categories for specific dog breeds, and so forth.
Preparation is no small task, either. The winning teams typically start looking for the ideal pooch to trim more than a year before the competition, and then they must decide and practice on the look they’ll give the dog.
Honestly, considering how my dog reacts to going to a groomer, the pups participating in this contest should probably get an award of their own.
4. Olney Pancake Tossing Race
Here’s one for the ladies. We’re saying that because only women are allowed to participate in the Olney Pancake Tossing Race.
Organized annually in the British town of Olney, 25 women dress in tradition housewives’ costumes. They then race 415 yards through the village — all the while flipping a pancake on a frying pan in their hand.
Participation in the Olney race is very exclusive, however. Not only do you need to be a woman, but you also have to have lived permanently in the village for at least three months prior to the competition.
Fortunately, there are many other pancake tossing races both in the UK and on this side of the Atlantic that are more egalitarian. So, if you’d like to try your hand (and legs) in a pancake tossing race, we bet you can find one.
5. Being Covered in Bees
There aren’t official championship games or a league for wearing thousands upon thousands of bees on your body. Maybe there should be, though, since people keep doing it all the time.
It seems that some folks really get into breaking the world record for being covered in bees. They might wear the bees as a beard on their faces, or just allow their entire bodies to be swarmed.
The world record for wearing a bee beard is held by Indian Vipin Seth, who had 135 pounds of bees hanging off his chin. For a full bee suit, the record is held by Chinese Ruan Liangming, who was covered in an estimated 637,000 bees.
Never mind the stings, wonder how hot it gets under all the bugs.
6. Hobby Horsing
There has to be something weird in the water in Finland, because they keep coming up with one outlandish sport after another. Not only did they invent wife carrying and phone throwing, but also hobby horsing — the contest of “riding” a stick horse.
Just like in real horse riding, the contestants race through a track with various obstacles. And they do it with a hobbyhorse between their legs.
And just like with other bizarre sports Finland has come up with, this one hasn’t stayed in the frigid north. There are hobby horsing competitions around the world, including the official U.S. Hobby Horse Championships.
Hey, it’s good exercise and as long as everyone’s having fun, that’s what matters. But seriously, what’s going on in Finland?