Strange Competitions

5. Air Guitar Championships

This preferred dance-move for all those with long hair and big boots officially became a competitive event back in 1996 in Finland. With rules such as “No back-up bands – air or real – are allowed” and “Competitors may finger pick or strum with either electric or acoustic – but all ‘real’ instruments are banned”, it’s obvious that these guitar heroes take the competition quite seriously. This year, the gold winner was Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeie from the US.

4. Rock Paper Scissors World Championship

This schoolyard pastime, now referred to as Professional RPS by the pros, has even been broadcast by Fox

Sports Net and sponsored by Bud Light. This year’s American championships lead to one lucky winner – Sean Sears – winning an incredible $50,000.

3. Curling

How this lack-lustre ‘sport’ became a medal-worthy activity, I’ll never know. The object of the game is to slide heavy polished granite stones down ice, guiding them along by sweeping the ice with brooms. Sound bizarre? It is – yet it’s been an Olympic Winter Game sport since 1998.

2. Cheese Rolling

Back to Britain, where this curious and frankly dangerous competition sees hundreds of people throwing themselves down a hill after a wheel of cheese – often sustaining hideous injuries. The competitions usually take place in Gloucester, but have recently arrived in British Columbia, where the “Dairy Farmers of Canada” hosted their first Annual Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival in August. The fastest one to the bottom wins the cheese.

1. Extreme Ironing

Extreme Ironing – or EI as it’s known in the industry, is not just thought of as a kooky sport, but as a performance art. The website sums it up as “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.” Competitors have taken their laundry on speed bikes, atop mountains whilst abseiling, on white water rafts, or done whilst break dancing. A new record was set in March 2008 when a team of 72 divers simultaneously ironed underwater. How did that work, then?