Axonoid

In the last post, I wrote about Rubik’s cube and a commentator gave me an idea when he talked about Rubik’s cube championships and winning money with that little colorful cube. I thought that there must be other kind of weird championships, even stranger than Rubik’s cube competitions.

Don’t worry, I found a lot of them! I already knew about some and I also found ones that I didn’t know about. So if you have a weird hobby, there is a lot of chances that there is a championship or at least a little competition somewhere in the world for it!

Snail Racing

After a rooster fight, horse race or a dog competition, what about a great fast and entertaining … snail race!? It seems that there are competitions around the world, but most of the “big” championships are held in the United Kingdom. The first World Snail Racing Championships was held in the UK in the 1960s.

The rules are simple, yet clever. The race is not made with a straight line like “normal” races, but in a circle, preventing the little creature to just change their direction and come back on their trail. So you just put the shells in the middle and the first one to touch the end of the circle wins. You can also stick a little piece of paper with a specific number on each one, preferably different for each snail or else you’ll have trouble to identify them You could also use a square or simply a sheet of paper if you want!

If you don’t know what to do with your kids this weekend, well that could be a nice idea!

More on snail racing:

Complete instruction on how to hold a snail race
Really detailed and well made instructions. It’s focus is mostly about how to make a snail race with your kids.

SnailRacing.net
An official snail race website. This one is held at The Cricket Field, Lynn Road, Congham, Norfolk, UK. The next race is on Saturday 18th July 2009 (so you’ll know what to do next year. Just buy your plane ticket :P)

Snail race video
A video of the snail race held at The Cricket Field (see previous link).

Wikipedia article
Wikipedia article about snail racing.

Pole Dancing

Yep, you read right. There are competitions for this form of dance! For example, the first prize for Miss Pole Canada is 1000$! There is even a world record for the most people pole dancing simultaneously.

And also check out miss pole dance UK & world pole dancing competition!

Ladies and gentlemen (mostly ladies), to your poles!

Chessboxing

I always thought that biathlon was the weirdest sport ever. Somebody skiing and then shooting targets is weird, no? Well, I was totally wrong. The weirdest sport ever is Chessboxing.

Chessboxing is born in a fictional writing from Enki Bilal (a french comic book creator). Somebody just decided that doing that kind of events for real could be fun. It was the idea of Iepe Rubingh (a Dutch artist). It’s that way that the sport was born in 2003.

To be a “chessboxer”, you need to have experience in a minimum number of 20 boxing matches and have a ELO (skill rating method for chess and other games) rating of 1800 or higher. So, as stated on the official WCBO website, Mike Tyson couldn’t just go there and win with his boxing abilities because he would need years of practice of chess to be accepted.

More on chessboxing:

Wikipedia article
Detailed article about how the sport is born and structure and rules.

WCBO
Official website of the World Chess Boxing Organisation.

Stone Skimming

Except if you lived on the moon all your life, you probably tried, at least one time, throwing a flat stone in water to watch it bounce? And the more bounces you got, the better you felt!

Well, you know what, there is a World Stone Skimming Championship! The rules are pretty simple too. The stone must not be larger than 3” in diameter. The stone must be found on Easdale island in Scottland (where the competition is). It must bounce tree times or more. What counts is the distance and not the number of bounces!

So far, the bigger distance somebody tossed a stone at is 65 meters. This record was made by the Australian Iain MacGregor. There is also a woman category, junior boys and girls and an old tosser category at this competition.

By the way, there is also a world record for stone skimming. Amazingly, the record holder was able to throw a stone that skipped 51 times on water! Do you want to know his technique? You can read this article about the trick, it explains some basic elements such as the right angle you need to have and how to grip the stone.

More on stone skimming:

World Stone Skimming Championship website
This is the official website of the World Stone Skimming Championship held in Easdale, Scotland.

Wikipedia article
You’ll learn, in this article, that there is also a USA organization for stone skipping.

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