The World’s Top 10 Alternative Olympic Sports

Greasy pole climbing

With under 100 days left to go to the Opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games, the Cheapflights.Com.Au website has issued its ideas for the world’s Top 10 Alternative Olympic Sports

The Olympic Games are coming up fast.To celebrate their near arrival, Cheapflights.co.au, the online travel deals website, has announced its favourite picks of alternative Olympic sports.

With athletes competing in 39 disciplines from across 26 sports, audiences may think they will see it all in London this summer. However, Cheapflights.com.au’s in-house experts, having spanned the globe in search of sports that aren’t on the Olympic radar and can confirm there’s a whole range of exciting competitions that would add some new dimensions to the Games.

From camel racing in Dubai to bun climbing in China and even Quidditch, the real life version inspired by Harry Potter – literally an entire world of competition awaits.

These are Cheapflights.com.au’s top 10 picks, two of which can be witnessed and enjoyed from right here in Australia.

Greasy pole climbing

Greasy pole climbing: This messy and challenging sport is a crowd favourite in a number of corners of the world including Indonesia, Brazil, the UK and the Caribbean, where, depending on the local tradition, competitors try either to shimmy up a vertical pole laden in grease or to reach the end of a slickened horizontal pole without first splashing into the sea. While grease-pole climbing made a one-time only appearance in the 1904 Olympics, the current the biggest stage for this sport is the Greasy Pole Competition, which takes place every year during St. Peter’s Fiesta in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Forty to fifty men aged between eighteen and sixty test the slipperiness and attempt to be the first to reach the end of the pole and grab the red flag. The pole is almost 14 metres (45 feet) long and can be anywhere from 3-7 metres (10-25 feet) from the sea at Gloucester Harbour. The pole is heavily greased with biodegradable axle grease and to make it extra slippery; anything from Tabasco sauce to banana peels are added. Due to the popularity of the contest, there are strict rules regarding who is eligible to walk on the pole. The event is currently held on Friday, June 29, Saturday, June 30, and Sunday, July 1 – always at 4:45pm.

Quidditch

Quidditch: Yes we mean the sport of Harry Potter and his friends. It’s played now in the “muggle” world with everything but the flying. Imagine instead people running astride broom sticks, working to get a ball through a hoop without getting smashed by an opponent aiming another ball at their heads, dodgeball style. Or chasing a gold-suited player darting around, carrying a sock stuffed with tennis balls, serving as the all-important “snitch,” which must be captured to end the match. This low-flying version of the game started at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2005 and now plays out at more than 300 college and high school campuses across the US and 12 other countries, according to The International Quidditch Association, Inc., which also hosts the annual World Cup and is considering an exhibition match in London to coincide with the Olympics. 

Corn Hole

Corn Hole: Basically a hipper version of horse shoes, Corn Hole became the new standard for tailgating, barbecues and all other styles of outdoors parties throughout the U.S. after college students in the Midwest put it on the map. A one-handed sport, Corn Hole can be (and most often is) played without ever putting down your beer. However, true competitors of the sport, which is thought to be based on a game created by Native Americans, play in tournaments sanctioned by the American Corn Hole Association. There they vie in two-person or two-team matches, looking to rack up 21 points by landing more of their bean bags than their opponents on the raised board (1 point) or through the 15cm (6 inch) diameter hole at its centre (3 points) from 8 metres (27 feet) away. Prize money has been creeping up over the years and now can be as high as US$20,000.

Pumpkin Chunking

Pumpkin Chunking: Champions of this autumnal sport can send gourds more than 1,219 metres (4,000 feet) in the air. In fact, the World Record pumpkin flight is over a km long (1,690.24 metres or 5,545.43 feet to be exact). While Pumpkin Chunking happens, formally and informally, throughout the U.S., the biggest competition is held annually by The World Championship Pumpkin Chunkin Association (WCPCA) in Sussex County Delaware the first full weekend in November. The competition features catapults, air cannons, trebuchets and even human-powered categories for firing the pumpkins and also has youth and under 10 kids divisions. For aspiring fans, tune into the Science Channel, which airs the event on Thanksgiving Day proceeded by an hour-long special about the preparation for the World Cup called the “Road to the Chunk.”

Camel Racing

Camel racing: Forget the Melbourne Cup. Camel racing in the United Arab Emirates is now the place to be seen. This famous sport, which is popular throughout the Middle East as well as Australia and Mongolia, takes place every year, mostly from late October to early April. In the dusty desert, camels race along a sand track up to 16km long, while their owners drive alongside shouting and honking their horns to urge the camels forward. The louder the shouting, the faster they run. But be careful not to get in their way as anywhere from 15 to 70 camels can be racing at once and onlookers will want to avoid the stampede! Unlike horse racing, there’s no betting in camel racing, but, if the sport tickles your fancy, owning a winning camel can be a lucrative investment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The races usually take place on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and, while the morning races tend to be reserved mostly for sheikhs, the afternoon races are open to all.

Cheese Rolling

Cheese Rolling: If you’ve never heard of cheese rolling before, it may be fair to say that you might assume it’s a civilised event. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Cheese rolling is anything but civilised. It’s a bone-crushing race where people run, stumble and slide down a steep hill to catch a massive roll of cheese. The most famous annual event is Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, held in Gloucestershire, UK, where competitors vie with massive Double Gloucester cheese rounds. The first person to grab the cheese wins and gets to take it home. The race, which dates back at least 200 years, traditionally takes place on the late spring bank holiday Monday in May, though that holiday is being moved to 4 June this year to add to the Queen’s Jubilee celebration weekend. Hundreds of participants, spectators and media flock to Gloucestershire from around the world for this unusual event.

Tuna Tossing

Tuna Tossing: The Tuna Tossing World Championship occurs annually at the Tunarama Festival in Port Lincoln, Australia. Men and women from 16 years up fight it out to toss their tuna the furthest, hoping to win a share of AU$3,000. Contestants can toss the 10kg frozen tuna in any way they want, so twirl, throw, fling and chuck that tuna to victory. But be warned, the record for the longest tuna toss of all time stretches for an enormous 25 metres, so competition is fierce! For younger tossing hopefuls between the ages of five and ten, the Tunarama Festival also holds an annual prawn toss.

Dunny Derby

Outhouse Racing: Rugged living leads to rowdy sports, or so it would seem given those who embrace the sport of Outhouse Racing. Found from the upper peninsula of Michigan and much of the upper mid-west and west in the U.S. through the Canadian Rockies and on into Alaska, this is a sport of hometown fun and foolishness. Aussies also have a turn at it, though here it is known as Dunny Racing. By either name, it’s a sport you can form a mental picture of quickly. Or possibly not. Here’s how it works in one Australian town: Every second year in September, the town of Winton in the outback of Queensland hosts the Sorbent Australian Dunny Derby. Twenty “dunny jockeys” sit astride dunnies on wheels pulled by a team of four to race to the finish line of a 250 metre track. All the jockeys are weighed in before and after each race and a professional race caller is present to call the race. Pick your favourite dunny and you can bet on it, although you may not win as much as the winning team, which is awarded AU$3,000. After the Derby has finished, everyone joins together to sing and dance to their favourite Country Music.

Cheung Chas Bun Festival

Bun Climbing: The annual Cheung Chas Bun Festival is held on the eighth day of the fourth month in the Chinese calendar. Thousands of locals and tourists gather on the tiny fishing island of Cheung Chau to celebrate the festival and watch the bun climbing in amazement. The Bun Mountains are 60 foot tall steel structures covered with delicious, decorative steamed buns and bamboo scaffolding. Men compete in a race to climb up the towers and grab as many buns as possible. The person with the most buns wins. This peculiar sport shouldn’t be taken lightly though, as potential bun climbers must take a training course to learn basic mountaineering skills. At the end of the training period, twelve finalists are chosen to compete in the bun climbing competition. For safety reasons, fake buns are now used to stop the possibility of climbers slipping.

Buzkashi

Buzkashi: Literally translated, it means “goat grabbing.” As for how it’s played, well, imagine polo but with one slight modification. Both sports involve two opposing teams competing on horseback with the aim of manoeuvring an object into the scoring area. The only difference is that in Buzkashi you use the carcass of a goat or calf instead of a ball. These days, a calf is used more often than a goat as the carcass of a calf is more durable. This is a fiercely competitive sport and definitely not for the faint hearted. To be in with a chance to win, both the player and the horse must undergo long and strenuous training. Buzkashi is the Afghan national sport and the Afghan Olympic Federation has now implemented official rules for the game.

For the full Top 10, visit http://www.cheapflights.com.au/travel-tips/top-ten-alternative-olympic-sports/

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