The English are supposed to be a nation of eccentrics but the Finns have more than their fair share of people doing oddball things, it is, after all, the country where the world air-guitar championship are held.
World Sauna Championships
As a spectator sport it lacks the frisson of athletic challenge, but that doesn’t stop the people in Heinola, 138 kilometres (86 miles) north of Helsinki, from holding an event whose winner is the one who can stay in a sauna the longest. But, the contest is not held in a typical spa sauna where the temperature may be 80 degrees Celsius.
The Daily Telegraph (August 9, 2009) reported on the heated battle for world championship status. “Home favourite Timo Kaukonen won the men’s event late on Saturday by withstanding a sweltering 110 degrees Celsius (230 degrees Fahrenheit) for 3 minutes 46 seconds. He beat compatriot Ilkka Poeyhiae by two seconds.
“Russia’s Tatyana Arkhipenko took the women’s event, braving the heat for three minutes and nine seconds.”
The rules are very simple; contestants must sit upright and if they can’t stand the heat - get out of the sauna.
World Wife-Carrying Championships
BBC News reports (August 22, 2009) on many of Finland’s more unusual summer competitions: “The mobile phone throwing world championship in Finland on Saturday is just one of many crazy contests on the country’s summer diary. Helsingin Sanomat columnist Perttu Haekkinen asks why Finns have such a fondness for these wacky pursuits.”
Mr. Haekkinen thinks it might have a lot to do with attracting tourists and helping them to spend their money. For example, the World Wife Carrying Championships have been held annually since 1992 in Sonkajaervi a small village in northeastern Finland. Normally, this community is home to less than 5,000 people, but on the weekend of the big event between 8,000 and 9,000 tourists show up.
World Boot Throwing Championships
It’s claimed that this “sport” had its origins in England where it is called somewhat prosaically Gumboot Throwing. In New Zealand where they use more colourful language and call it “Wellie Wanging,” the town of Taihape has the nerve to call itself The Boot-Throwing Capital of the World.
The World Boot-Throwing Championship event is held every year in Finland. According to the BBC this probably involved a combination of boredom and liquor
Harri Kinnunen, two-time organizer of the Boot Throwing World Championships, explains how the whole thing might have started. “I think it’s pretty obvious that some drunken people were sitting on a terrace after a sauna and saw a rubber boot…I guess all Finnish summer sports were invented by drunk people.”
Swamp Soccer
It seems likely that booze might have inspired swamp soccer, and its winter variant snow soccer. There’s some doubt about the origins of the “sport;” the English claim to have invented it, but so do the Finns. The game is played in a similar way to regular soccer only the pitch is a bog or swamp.
The Finns hold the world championships in Ukkohalla, in July, and it’s big. The tournament’s website boasts that “This year we have 325 teams and almost 5,000 excited swamp soccer players competing to succeed in the 2009 world championships.”
Teams came from Norway, Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands but the Finns were triumphant, winning both the men’s and women’s contests.
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