Interesting, Bizzare and Weird Sports - That Sums It All Up

Friday, October 26, 2007

Cheese Rolling



Without any doubt in my mind, this has got to be the most unusual and the strangest sport today. It happens in Cooper Hill, England. It is incredibly dangerous that it is very uncommon if all the players leave without a broken bone or an injured skull. How is it played? first, a master of ceremonies gives the countdown - "One to be ready, two to be steady, three to prepare, four to be off" - and then up to 20 contestants chase a seven-pound circular block of cheese down a steep, bumpy hillside, trying to catch it before it gets to the bottom of 300 yards below. Four games are played over the course of one day, including one for women.

This is a video of a recent competition. Watch and decide for yourself. Now, how do you define an "extreme sport"?




Viking's Extreme Cricket



As with many aspects of their culture, it’s unclear exactly what kinds of games the Vikings played, but one thing is certain - their games were incredibly brutal and violent, since they were considered training for personal combat.

From vague descriptions in Icelandic "sagas" - histories of the Vikings that were passed down orally for hundreds of years before finally being transcribed in the 1900s - one ball game sounds a bit like an early and very violent version of cricket. The main difference being that most contemporary cricket players can expect to survive to the end of the game.

Vikings, on the other hand, weren’t always so lucky. "Egil and Thord played against Skallagrim, who grew tired and they came off better. But the evening after sunset, Egil and Thord began losing. Skallagrim was filled with such strength that he seized Thord and dashed him to the ground so fiercely that he was crushed by the blow and died on the spot."

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