Odd Sports
Chessboxing popularity grows with London show
Chessboxing, the hybrid sport where contestants alternate between rounds of chess and boxing, has come to London.
By Chris Irvine
12 Oct 2009
Players Andy "The Rock" Costello, an English former cage fighter, and Italian Gianluca "Il Dottore" Sirci competed in the first European heavyweight championship final. And despite The Rock landing more punches during the boxing rounds, Il Dottore's chess game was the difference between the two, with the Italian defeating The Rock via checkmate in the ninth round.
As the name would suggest in Chessboxing, rounds of chess are alternated with rounds of boxing. They take turns over 11 rounds with four minutes of chess and three of boxing. The action takes place in the ring in full boxing gear, although the gloves are removed for the chess. The competitors also wear earplugs and headphones during the chess rounds to help with concentration. If there is no winner after 11 rounds of punching and castling, victory is awarded to the fighter with the most points in the boxing ring.
Chessboxing was created in 2003 by Iepe Rubingh, a Dutch artist. "I got the idea from a Serbian comic," he told The Times. "It looked great. I wanted to see if it would work." The first match then took place, in a church, in front of 800 people. The sport has now attracted more than 150 professional competitors.
Tim Woolgar, who founded The Chess Boxing Organisation in August 2008, said: "If you get a guy to box, it teaches him self-respect. But if you get teach him something like chess as well, you teach him a whole new set of skills. And those are skills which can be put to practical use when it comes to finding jobs."
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Anyone for breast stroke? Our writer loses her body hang-ups to compete in the naturist Olympics
Jessica Hatcher
13th November 2009
It's only the second time in 17 years that Britain has played host. They have hired an entire leisure centre because, as Andrew Welch from British Naturism tells me: 'We can't have "textile (clothed) people" wandering around.' It's a common misconception, I'm told, that naturists never wear clothes. It's just that they believe there is a time and a place to be naked, that's all.
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'Tough Guy' contest: Eight miles of mud, barbed wire, broken glass and fire... the race that defies our 'elf and safety culture
1st February 2010
The eight-mile long assault course features terrifying underwater tunnels, barbed wire fences and fire walks. It sees competitors stretched to their physical boundaries as they clamber over nets, walls and even an electrified fence dubbed 'The Tiger'. Brave Britons, Aussies, New Zealanders, Chinese and Japanese all took part in the rainy event - which saw its fair share of broken bones and bruised bodies. Among the competitors were serving policemen and military personnel - but some of the more daring wore costumes, including 25 people dressed up as Liquorice Allsorts.
Event organiser Mouser Wilson, said: 'We' didn't have much ground space, we had about 7,000 people here and we had to shut the doors to the public because everybody wanted to do it. 'We have had to turn at least a thousand away. There is nothing like this in the world, and that is why people from all over the globe want to come here. Every year there's something new - we have a zipline this year which takes you down a 1,000 metres very quickly and if you don't let go above the water you'll go straight into the wall.
We had a fair few broken bones. But people attempt the course as a journey of self discovery, if people break their legs, they don't come whining like many in our blame and claim culture - they ring up and apologise saying "Please let me come back next year". We've had more and more children asking to do it, so we're going to hold the first ever kids-only Tough Guy in October.'
One competitor, Liam Posthewaite, 32, from Bristol, said: 'This is the hardest thing I've ever physically done. Every single inch of you aches afterwards but the sense of achievement is so satisfying that it's worth the pain. This is the first time I've done it... but it won't be the last.'
Roller derby takes Britain's women by storm
The fast, aggressive US sport of roller derby is going from strength to strength in the UK. Hilary Osborne finds out why we're so keen to get our skates on
Hilary Osborne
guardian.co.uk,
4 February 2010
Invented in 1920s America, roller derby has evolved into a predominantly female sport - and one that is fiercely aggressive. Teams take part in bouts and score points by getting their "jammer" - usually their fastest player - around the track ahead of opposition players. They earn a point for each one they lap, but while the jammer is trying to get round, the other team is trying to stop her, using almost any means possible. As a result, the list of injuries sustained by Rockin' Rollers since the club was founded in 2007 is fairly impressive: as well as the obligatory bruises players have suffered concussion, shoulder injuries and broken bones. But that isn't putting them off.
The Women's Flat Track Derby Association, which promotes the sport in the US, lists 77 clubs and says that across the world the number of flat-track clubs has grown from one to more than 400 in less than a decade. While four years ago the sport was virtually unheard of in Britain, there are now more than 24 established teams (or leagues, as they're known) from Perth to Plymouth, and more are starting up all the time. The Rockin' Rollers have been forced to set up a waiting list to cope with the influx of new players, and with a film based on the sport already out in the US and set for UK release in April, it seems roller derby is likely to get even bigger.
Around 25 women joined the Rockin' Rollers last autumn, and the club now boast more than 80 members. Their local rivals, the London Rollergirls, saw 90 women register for a tryout session at the end of last year. "We have seen a gradual but steady increase in interest over the last three years and have gone from accepting new skaters at any time in 2006/7 to limiting intake to monthly newbie sessions in late 2008 to our current procedure of holding tryouts every few months," says Rollergirl member Fox Sake, aka Jayne Mahoney. Other clubs across the UK are also reporting an increase in interest and participation.
In north London, budding Rockin' Rollers are put through their paces by some of the old hands at the club - although so new is the sport to Britain that even the veterans have only been playing for three years. Jayne Plackett, known on the track as Bloody Valentine, says all sorts of women in their 20s and 30s are signing up. "We get people who run their own business, we've got bankers, nurses, piercers, tattooists, people who work in advertising and digital media," she says. Some women are looking for a way to keep fit that isn't going to the gym, she says, while others are attracted by the social aspect. Despite the physical nature of the game the players insist you don't have to be tough to take part, and that many of them are "real pussy cats" off the track.
Most people sign up after seeing a bout or hearing about the sport through friends. "After you start it tends to be all you talk about," says Clare Jackson, whose roller derby name is Whip It. But Drew Barrymore's new film, also called Whip It, could change that. "We're looking for a bigger hall so we can take more people on," Jackson says.
Alongside customised kits, names are an important part of the game. Players register their chosen names in America, and no two in the world can choose the same sobriquet. As you might have gathered, they tend to be pretty spiky. "It's a kind of alter ego changing you from where you are normally to where you are on the track," says Plackett. "If you go out and you have a little bit of a hard name, it can give you confidence."
Roller Derby class The Rockin' Rollers' beginners' class. Photograph: Anna Gordon
Harriet Foxwell, a spokeswoman for the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, says sports that attract women are very welcome. "As little as 3% of women play traditional competitive team sports - that's compared to 17% of men - so newer sports which are successfully attracting women are a real positive," she says. "With a sport such as roller derby, where there is a high level of women both in leadership positions and participating, they can help shape the way it's run in order to make the provision as female-friendly as possible."
As you watch women crashing into each other at full speed, you may wonder why anyone would want to strap on skates and throw themselves into the firing line. Dr Victor Thompson, a clinical sports psychologist based in London, says the answer is simple: "Adrenaline rush, physical stimulation, endorphin release (the feel-good hormones), the challenge, the camaraderie of working in a team, the common goal … feeling like you are alive. For many, the question isn't why would you play such sport, but why AREN'T you playing such a sport?"
Dr Thompson says aggressive sports are attractive both to women who take traditional roles but want a form of escape, and those who have broken the mould and want a hobby that fits with their day job. "For these women, sports like roller derby are a good fit to their challenging day job. Having a nice bath and reading a book just won't do it," he says.
Louise Esposito, 25, who joined the Rockin' Rollers in April 2008 - two months after giving birth to her daughter, Isabelle - says she likes the chance it gives her to be herself. "I heard about it when I was pregnant from a friend who had started playing and I thought 'as soon as I have the baby I've got to do that'. I came along and the next day I was out buying skates - I just fell in love with it straight away," says Louise, or Tanya B Hind as she's known on the track.
"I've always played sport, I like exercise, and I wanted something that made me feel like me again … I've stopped going out to the pub with friends but now I've replaced it with this. I wanted something different and something that wasn't being a mum. Here I can just be me."
• Find a roller derby league near you at www.ukderbynews.co.uk
Topless sledging proves surprisingly popular
It's a controversial sport that's been threatened with bans in the past - but a topless tobogganing tournament in Germany went ahead and, you'll be astonished to learn, attracted thousands of spectators.
26-year-old Christian Schmidt won the event, while one 70-year-old man got the biggest round of applause for stripping down to his long johns. 'It was very cold, and because of that some of those girls would definitely had a bit of an advantage in a photo finish,' said one gutter-minded fan.
The event came after officials in another German town tried to put a stop to Germany's first ever topless tobogganing championships, after the mayor said he was 'offended' by the spectacle. In that event, in Oberwiesenthal near the border with the Czech Republic, ladies competed for cash prizes of around 300 pounds, while being required only to wear a hard helmet and footwear.
Liberal party mayor Mirko Ernst had threatened a ban. 'The good name of Oberwiesenthal is at stake,' he said.
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"gutter-minded fan."
Introducing 'Skyaking': skydiving with a kayak
Paddling across the sky, 13,000ft up in a kayak has become a new daredevil craze dubbed 'Skyaking'.
04 Mar 2010
The 40-year-old, from Twin Falls, Idaho, decided to put a twist into has favourite pastime when looking for new ideas to take it even more extreme. These pictures 13,000 feet Above Ground Level (AGL) over beautiful Lake Tahoe show his efforts. "It took us nearly a year before we could get our wish to come true as no-one was really looking to throw a kayak out of an aeroplane. To begin with we did it off a 600ft bridge on a static line, and landed in Feather River, California. A year later I got permission to jump out of an aeroplane and so since that time I have jumped out of four different aircraft, including a helicopter. We have taken it all over the world from Mexico to Abu Dhabi and I have been Skyaking for nearly eight years now."
Over the years the father-of-two and his team have slowly perfected the art of Skyaking. "There are a lot of things that can go wrong in skyaking and so you have to be prepared, in skyaking I usually put the chute quite high. With skydives I will pull at 2,000 ft above the ground whereas with skyaking I will pull at 5,000 ft above the ground incase anything starts to go a little crazy. That way I have a time to sort things out, get out of the boat and then pull the chute for the kayak."
He has noted some strong differences in regular skydiving. "The rate at which you fall is a lot different," he said. "Instead of falling flat on your belly you are sitting up right in an L position. I liken it to sitting on a space hopper, balancing front to back and side to side. It does take some decent balance skills. And because the boat has such a big surface area your fall rate is a lot slower. If you are lying on your belly, a normal sized humour will fall at 120 mph. If you go into a stand up or a head down then you can build the speed up to 160-180 mph. But with this boat, that has so much surface area and weighs 35 lbs, meaning that I fall at only 98 mph.
The reduced rate of Mr Daisher's descent through the clouds means that cameramen wishing to film him need to wear special wingsuits to increase drag and reduce their own fall rate. Wingsuits are specially adapted bodywear for skydivers and BASE jumpers. Flaps of material running across the gaps between arms and legs increase drag for jumpers and allow them to glide like a flying squirrel.
Mr Daisher has completed more BASE jumps than anyone in the world with 2,570 and has completed a whopping 3,000 skydives since he quit his job and took up the sport in 1995.
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Estonia holds mosquito-catching championship
The eyes of the world may be focused on the football in South Africa, but it's not the only gripping sporting contest going on at the moment - Estonia has just held its first ever mosquito-catching championship.
16th June 2010
metro.co.uk
'We have many mosquitoes and we must fight them somehow, so we decided to organise a mosquito-catching championship,' said the event's organiser, Triinu Akkermann. The competition rules allowed for the mosquitoes to be captured dead or alive, and competitors were allowed to work either alone or in teams of three.
The competitors had a range of tactics worked out - with one, Jevgeny Serov, telling Reuters: We will warm up so we will start sweating a little then I will stand with bare hands and feet and my wife and daughter will pick mosquitoes off me. But eventually emerging triumphant was mosquito-catcher supreme Rauno Luksepp, who managed to take out 38 mosquitoes while getting repeatedly bitten to win the first prize of a sailing trip on Estonia's Lake Peipus.
The idea of the contest came from Finland, where there have been mosquito-catching championships in the past.
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Russian contestant dies in searing 225-degree heat at World Sauna Championships
8th August 2010
The 'sport' calls on participants to sit in a 230-degree (110 Celsius) room as water was tossed onto a searing stove, officials and witnesses said. Medical workers pulled both men out of the sauna in front of nearly 1,000 horrified spectators. Both were shaking and bleeding from what appeared to be severe burns, said Hakon Eikesdal, a photographer with the Norwegian daily Dagbladet. Kaukonen, about 40, was hospitalised in stable condition Sunday, contest spokesman Ossi Arvela said.
The event, which had over 130 participants from 15 countries, had been held since 1999. It will never be held again, Arvela said. A pint of water is added to the stove every 30 seconds and the last person to remain at the sauna is the winner. There was no prize other than 'some small things' Arvela said. He declined to provide details. Arvela said Kaukonen - the defending world champion - had refused to leave the sauna despite getting sick.
Sauna bathing is a popular past-time in Finland, which has an estimated 1.6 million saunas for a population of 5 million. Temperatures are normally kept around 158 to 176 degrees (70-80 degrees Celsius).
'I know this is very hard to understand to people outside Finland who are not familiar with the sauna habit,' Arvela said. 'It is not so unusual to have 110 degrees in a sauna. A lot of competitors before have sat in higher temperatures than that.' Arvala said all rules in Saturday's competition were followed and the temperatures and times were similar to those in previous years. He said police are investigating the death.
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110c? What the blistering hell would you want to sit in that for? But hey, at least he died doing something he loved - pity it was being boiled to death.
Puzzling skydive as man completes Rubik’s Cube at 2,500m, in a dinghy
As if the Rubik’s Cube wasn’t hard enough, Ludwig Fichte completed the puzzle while skydiving. In a rubber dinghy. It’s reasonable to ask: Was he high?
Fichte said: ‘Solving the Rubik's Cube in freefall has been done before by three people, as far as I know. But I am the first to do it in a rubber boat.’ Well, that’s great, Fichte. What will your next trick be? Doing a sudoku puzzle while being chased by tigers? We waited with baited breath.
In the meantime, check out the plane crazy YouTube video of Fichte’s Rubik’s Cube antics: