With sports so deeply ingrained in American culture, they have become a constant in people’s everyday lives. Sports act as a source of entertainment as well as a great way to connect with others. Nevertheless, there is a whole world of bizarre and downright unbelievable sports out there that many people have never heard of. Although it is impossible to cover them all, the list below details three of the most captivating niche sports.
Extreme ironing measures a participant’s ability to get rid of creases in clothes in unusual and precarious situations. Though there are multiple theories for the origin of the sport, a widely accepted one goes as follows: the sport was started by Englishman Phil Shaw, who in 1997 had to decide whether to go home and iron his clothes, or go out rock climbing. Shaw instead set out to do both simultaneously. A few years later, he began promoting the activity internationally and successfully marketed the sport into the competition it is today. Since around 2008, large numbers of divers have competed to iron shirts underwater. In 2011, a Guinness World Record-making 173 divers were sent by a Dutch swimming club to iron shirts underwater in an indoor swimming pool. As the sport continues to develop, people are finding increasingly crazy scenarios to iron their clothes, making the sport ever more entertaining.
Fireball soccer, known by local Indonesian students as “Sepak Bola Api,” is a unique game played to welcome the month of Ramadan. The game is very similar to traditional soccer matches — aside, of course, from the burning ball made from a coconut soaked in kerosene — but the pre-game rituals set fireball soccer apart from the standard game. Fireball soccer players are said to undergo special rituals that make them impervious to fire, and many players also fast before the game. With the completion of these rituals, individuals are said to become better players, no longer scared of fire. Right before the game starts, the kerosene-soaked coconut is set aflame, and all the players are covered in salt and other non-flammable spices. A few ritual prayers are recited and the game is off!
Marking England’s second appearance on this list, Gloucestershire’s 600-year-old annual cheese rolling event is like none other in the world. The concept of cheese rolling is quite simple: participants chase a seven-pound circular block of cheese down Cooper’s Hill, which is nearly vertical. To start the contest, a cheese master tosses the wheel down the 200-yard hill, and the chase is on. On its journey down the hill, the wheel of cheese can reach a whopping 70 miles per hour. The participants chasing the cheese soon begin to roll, as it is impossible to sprint down such a steep hill. This is no safe task and every year participants in the competition suffer lasting injuries such as broken legs and severe concussions. Whoever is ultimately able to descend the hill fastest is crowned the annual champion of the event. Although the competition sounds quite brutal, the physical risks are well understood by the competition’s participants, as they are part of the game just for the thrill of competing.
These examples represent just a sliver of the world’s craziest sporting events that people participate in. It is fair to wonder about the purpose of these sports or how they came to be — like why a person would feel compelled to throw themselves down a hill in pursuit of a cheese wheel for a minimal prize. At the end of the day, it speaks to the human love of competition. Wacky sports aren’t about the money or the prestige — they are about the love of the game and the glory of competing.
