Weird and unusual sports

Extreme ironing:

Extreme Ironing is known as an extreme sport which combines housework with the adventure of the outdoors. It involves taking an iron and board to remote locations and ironing a few items of laundry. This can involve ironing on a mountainside or taking an iron skiing, snowboarding, or canoeing. Extreme ironing originally comes from Leceister in the UK where in the summer of 1997 a man named  Phil Shaw wanted to go rock climbing but also had a lot of ironing to do. He then made the decision to combine both of these tasks and from that point forward extreme ironing was born.      The sport did not take off straight away, but in 1999 Phil Shaw set out on a tour around the world. Whilst on this tour Phil met a bunch of German thrill seekers and from this Extreme Ironing International became established. In 2002 the German sister office held the first world Championship for extreme ironing near Munich. Since this point in time the sport has rapidly spread throughout the World and in 2003 there was an estimated 1000 extreme ironers of all nationalities now involved in the sport.

Zorbing

Zorbing is the sport of rolling downhill inside a transparent plastic orb. There are two types of orbs, harnessed and non-harnessed. Non-harness orbs can carry up to three riders, and the harnessed orbs are constructed for one to two riders. The first zorbing site was established in Rotorua, New Zealand, by David and Andrew Akers in 1994. It is now a big business with a growing number of zorbing sites across the world.  The sport can be enjoyed by people of all ages who don’t mind being strapped inside an enormous air-cushioned ball. You are actually quite secure inside the inner capsule. All the violent bouncing is absorbed by the bigger outer ball. Liquid-zorbing is a more recent development, Two or three buckets of water are added in the zorb which results in being unattached to the inner ball.

BoTaoshi

Botaoshi is Japanese sport where opposing teams fight each other over a wooden pole. The game involves two teams of 75 members each and a wooden pole. Members of a team gather around and on the wooden pole and try to defend it against the attacking team, which tries to take it down by pushing, punching and kicking their opponents.  Botaoshi was invented around 1954. At first the attacking team only had to lower the wooden pole at a 45 degree angle, but in 1973 the rules were modified to force teams to lower the pole to 30 degrees. Attacking players only have around two and a half minutes to bring down the pole, or the defending team wins.

Quidditch

Muggle Quidditch is a sport based on Quidditch, the fictional sport developed by  author J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series. The sport was adapted for the nonmagical world in 2005 by students at  Middlebury College in Vermont. Its popularity quickly spread, and today more than 150 colleges have Quidditch teams. As in the fictional game, all players must carry a broom between their legs at all times and each Muggle Quidditch team has seven players: three chasers, two beaters, a keeper, and a seeker. Chasers score points by throwing a volleyball, through one of three hoops (worth 10 points) while trying to avoid  dodgeballs, that are thrown by beaters. The keeper's job is to protect the three goalposts, while the seeker must capture the snitch, which is a sock stuffed with tennis balls typically carried by a cross-country runner dressed in yellow. Capturing the snitch nets an additional 30 points and ends the game.

Cheese rolling

Cheese rolling is an annual event held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper’s Hill in the Cotswolds region of England and dates back to the 1800s. It is traditionally for the people who live in the local village of Brockworth, but now people from all over the world take part. From the top of the hill a Double Gloucester cheese is rolled, and competitors race down the hill after it. The first person over the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. In theory, competitors are aiming to catch the cheese, however it has around a one second head start and can reach speeds up to 112 km/h, enough to knock over and injure a spectator. Due to the steepness and uneven surface of the hill there are usually a number of injuries, ranging from sprained ankles to broken bones and concussions.

Man vs horse marathon

The Man v Horse Marathon is an annual race over 35 km, where runners compete against riders on horseback, the race takes place in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells every June. In 1980 Gordon Green overheard a discussion between two men in a bar as to whether over a significant distance a man was equal to a horse. The course was changed to provide a more even match between the man and the horse resulting year on year in very close finishes - sometimes with the horse winning by only a few seconds. It took 25 years before a man finally beat a horse, Huw Lobb won in 2hrs and 5mins beating the fastest horse by 2 minutes.