16 August: Weird Contest Week

This week is Weird contest week. 10 weird contests from around the world:

1. World Bog Snorkelling Championship: swimmers in wacky costumes compete for the best time Swimming with flippers along a 197-foot stretch of bog while wearing a snorkel. There's even a bog triathlon (the bog plus a 5-mile run and 12-mile mountain bike ride).
2. Great Knaresborough Bed Race: teams of six pushing intricately decorated beds (with one passenger) along a 2.4-mile course which includes up and downhill sections, cobbled streets and even a swim across the River Nidd.
3. Worm Charming Championship: Contestants have 30 minutes to raise as many worms as they can to surface of their designated section. Any technique is allowed, including poking the ground with pitchforks and playing the bongos. The current world record was set by a 10-year-old girl who managed to raise 567 worms in 2009.
4. Chess boxing: a hybrid fighting sport where opponents alternate between rounds spent playing Chess and boxing.
5. The Bubble Baba Challenge: A Russian contest involving paddling through the rapids of a river using blow-up dolls as flotation devices.
6. Extreme Ironing: started in 1997 in Leicester by Phil Shaw who, after coming home from a hard day’s work, decided he’d rather go rock climbing than do the ironing. Extreme ironing enthusiasts post pictures online of them ironing on mountainsides, underwater, while Skiing and even during free fall.
7. Wife-carrying: started in Finland but there are now contests all over the world. Men must carry a woman (doesn't actually have to be their wife or even girlfriend) 278 yards and negotiate two obstacles, one involving Water, on the way. The prize is the “wife"’s weight in Beer and five times her weight in cash.
8. The Cow Chip Tossing Championship: contestants must throw a cow chip the longest distance. A cow chip, by the way, is a piece of dried buffalo poo.
9. Bee-Wearing Competition: people compete to see who can hold the most live Bees on their body. The usual method is to stand on a scale wearing little but swimming trunks and use a queen bee to attract as big a swarm as possible in an hour. The bee-wearing world record is currently 39.5 kilograms (approximately 350,000 bees) by American Mark Biancaniello.
10. Tar Barrels of Ottery St. Mary: held in early November, contestants carry barrels on their backs which have been dipped in tar and set alight as they race through the streets. It's thought to have originated with The Gunpowder Plot.

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