Top 10 Strangest Sports in the World

Most of us love sports or at least watching professional athletes compete against each others because in all fairness, what’s not to like? We all recognize the tennis player on the billboard or that football player from the shampoo commercial on TV, because we as a culture appreciate those who push their condition to the limit. The star athletes of the following sports, however, aren’t that easily recognizable. This is because the sports on our following list are practiced by only a select few at any given time. Without further ado, here are the 10 strangest sports in the world right now.

Buzkashi

Buzkashi is a rather aggressive kind of polo also played on horseback. It is a sport that originates from Central Asia. There is a very critical difference between this extreme sport and the conventional polo – there is no wooden mallet or a ball. Replace these two with a carcass of a goat! So players score by dragging this carcass across the other team’s goal line. It is a deadly game, quite literally, and players can be a bit quite rough sometimes, but a fun game overall.

Extreme Ironing

The name says it all. It is an extreme sport, and it involves ironing – yes, that thing you do to your clothes to remove unsightly creases. Players of this rather unusual sport think of the most insane and incredulous places to iron their clothes. They take their ironing essentials to some remote place and photograph themselves doing the deed. Not much fun, right? Wrong. Some of these remote places include – underwater, on top of a moving vehicle, hanging from a cliff, or even when performing extreme water sports. This gives the ironists the thrill of a lifetime.

Poohsticks and Quidditch

These two extreme and utterly ridiculous sports are quite unrelated except for the part where they were both conceived after enthusiastic fans of two books – Winnie-the-Pooh and Harry Porter Series, thought of living their fantasy in the real world. Quidditch, as expected has strong elements of magic and wizardry and shares a similar scoring system as is in the series. The major difference between fiction and reality – these super ambitious muggles can’t fly. Poohsticks is less complicated – participants throw sticks in the river and whoever’s stick appears first on the other side of the bridge takes home the prize.

Gurning Contest

You know the Apocalypse is near when people start participating in sports such as the Gurning contest. Gurning supposedly means pulling your face – so you can see where this is headed. While we are used to seeing competitions that determine the most beautiful faces and such, the Gurning Contest awards the person with the ugliest face. And participants really try to outsmart (out-garn, out-ugly) each other. They make the scariest and funniest of faces and the winner goes home with a trophy. There is even a World Gurning Contest.

Wife Carrying

This is the real case of carrying one’s own burden. Wife carrying is quite interesting and the ladies have all the fun while the men do all the work. Wife carrying definitely qualifies as an extreme sport. The man has to carry their wife (or female partner) while negotiating a rather challenging course (254m). The race course could be muddy, dry, or packed with obstacles. The sport has its origin in Finland and the prizes to be won include; a mobile phone and best of all beer – your female partner’s weight in beer!

Zorbing

Zorbing is a pastime sport where people get inside some huge transparent plastic ball of sorts. This is called an orb. The sport is typically performed on a area with a gentle slope so that the Orb can roll freely downhill. The rider inside gets tossed and turned around. When done on a flat surface, the person inside the orb gets to control the orb because they have to keep it in motion. Except for the tossing and turning when the orb is on sloping ground – which otherwise feels like bouncing on a trampoline, zorbing is in no way an extreme sport – it is definitely a great recreational sport.

Dog Dancing

Dog dancing does not really qualify to be called a sport, however, since it is more of an art and it has a competitive edge, it can still be classified here. It is understandable if you imagine that dog dancing involves a dog dancing to the beat of some music, right? Well, that’s partially so, however, the sport goes beyond that. It is all about a demonstration of creative obedience, interaction between a pet and its owner and a mutual love for music. This seemingly simple canine freestyle is now a competitive sport in Europe, North America and even parts of Asia.

Nude Sports

In this category, not just one sport will be talked about. Naturalists are trying to take us back to our roots – the days when our ancestors used to walk naked. So they organize sporting activities where the participants must play in the nude. For instance, there is a popular event – World Naked Bike Ride. In such events, people forget about the norm and engage in their favorite sports when naked. Some cultures even encourage it. Some notable events where people play naked or partially naked include – International Nudist Swimming Gala, Roskilde Festival and the International Naturist Sports Week.

Underwater Hockey

If you are a fan of hockey, there is no way that you can even begin to imagine your favorite sport being played underwater. Given how dangerous hockey can get when played the normal way, an even more hazardous version would sound insane – but it does exist. Underwater hockey is more risky – and this is probably where the thrill comes from. While the rules are more or less the same, underwater hockey uses sticks the size of a banana. A metallic puck is pushed around the floor of the pool.

Oil Wrestling

Oil wrestling is more or less the same as the conventional wrestling. The only difference is that with this extreme sport, wrestlers are drenched in oil. Imagine how hard it is to even grab and wrestle someone when you have zero friction. It is pretty hard – spectators are treated to quite a spectacle as wrestlers try to get each other down. In some countries like Turkey, the sport is so old – going back as early as 1357. It was a festival to mark the Ottoman Victory. Today, this sport has spread to many countries and it has really grown in popularity.

Source: peimag.com