Sports are a popular form of entertainment and competition around the world. While some sports are universally recognized and enjoyed, there are many unusual and bizarre sports that are played in different parts of the world
1. Chess Boxing
Chess boxing is exactly what it sounds like: a combination of boxing and the strategy board game of chess. The two opponents play alternating rounds of blitz chess (also known as speed chess) and boxing.
The winner is the first person to achieve either a checkmate or a knockout. It is also possible to win on points from the boxing portion of the game or if your opponent chooses to withdraw from the chess portion.
This might sound like an incredibly niche combination of sports, but chess boxing is popular enough that it has two global governing bodies: the World Chessboxing Association (WCBA) and the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO).
2. Underwater Hockey AKA Octopush
Octopush (also known as Underwater Hockey) was invented in the 1950s by a team of divers who wanted a more fun way to stay fit than just swimming laps. In this underwater variation on hockey, players wear a mask, snorkel, fins, and a water polo hat and carry a small stick.
Just as in regular hockey, each team’s objective is to score points by pushing the puck into the opposing team’s goal. Octopush is traditionally played in 25m swimming pools.
The challenge with Octopush is that participants must breathe through their snorkels in between doing battle with their opponents underwater. Some of the best players are those who have mastered holding their breath for a long time.
3. Soapbox Racing
The Red Bull Soapbox Race hosts several races around the world. Handcrafted vehicles are pushed down a hill, and contestants have to navigate their vehicles through a course containing various obstacles. Not all contestants are engineers, so the vehicles are prone to crashes, toppling, or breaking apart to the entertainment of spectators. Contestants are judged for their soapbox’s creativity, a pre-race performance, and their race time. Therefore, speed is not everything, and creativity plays a massive role. Contestants often design their vehicles based on themes from pop culture or history. Of course, the contestants dress up to look the part too.
4. Canal Jumping
Canal jumping, or fierljeppen, originated and is popular in the Netherlands. The sport takes place at a location with a muddy canal. Players try to jump as far as possible from one side of the canal to the other without getting wet and muddy. In the canal there is a pole with a flat round bottom that can swing when weight is applied. The pole is typically 12.5 meters long. Contestants get a running start before jumping onto the pole. As the pole is swinging toward the other side of the canal (if it does at all, depending on the weight applied or momentum), contestants try to climb as high as they can on the pole before dismounting safely to the other side. Contestants who fail will get wet and muddy.
5. Disc golf
Although it could be said its history dates back as long as people have been throwing discs at targets, the sport of disc golf as we know it today dates to 1960s California when a man named George Sappenfield envisioned a new activity. As recreation supervisor for the city of Thousand Oaks, Sappenfield created a sport in which kids used the ubiquitous flying discs known as Frisbees to hit a series of targets in the fewest number of throws.
The simplicity of the sport took hold and evolved over the years into disc golf. Nowadays, the “holes” are round wire chain baskets attached to poles and discs are manufactured in a variety of sizes and weights. Serious competitors use multiple discs when they play courses which, like golf layouts, generally have nine or 18 holes.
There are more than 200 disc golf courses in North Carolina ranging from Wilmington and Williamston down east to Cullowhee and Fontana Village out west. Folks play on Goat Island in the middle of the South Fork River near Cramerton and ride the chairlift to a disc course on the ski slopes of Beech Mountain.
6. PESAPALLO
Also known as ‘Finnish baseball’, pesäpallo is considered Finland’s national sport. Played competitively in the Superpesis league, the game involves two teams taking turns at batting and running bases as their opponents try to get them out. And they wear silly outfits and helmets.
The idea is very similar to traditional baseball however instead of a pitcher on a mound facing the batter, a fielding player at the home plate throws the ball in the air vertically and backs away as the batsman walks in to hit the ball into play within the boundaries.
Hitting it in this manner means the batter is better able to strategically place the ball, bringing an intriguing tactical element to the game. With teams forced to predict the plays both in defence and offense, the manager often helps out with using a colourful fan to give signals and guide the team.
7. FISTBALL
Romans invented a lot of cool sports, but Fistball is definitely one of their lesser known creations. Maybe it’s because of tournaments called ‘Fistivus’ or their players, called ‘Fistballers’, but incredibly the sport is played in 25 countries around the world. The game is very similar to volleyball however, as the sport’s name suggests, the ball is struck with the fist or arm, rather than open hands. There are five players on each team and the ball is allowed to bounce on the other side of the net after being hit over by the opposition. After five sets a winner is decided.
Fistball has an international federation (as well as an Australian one) regularly organising tournaments. Every four years at the World Games — a competition for sports not contested at the Olympics — the world champion of fistball is decided.
8. Shovel Racing
Shovel Racing is one of the weird sports in the world. This sport borrows the concept of sledging, but instead of the sledge, one uses a shovel. Like other strange sports, shovel racing started oddly. Workers at a New Mexico ski resort in the ’70s used shovels to move from one point to point quickly. This sport made it to the winter X games in 1997 but was stopped for safety reasons.
9. Fireball soccer
Fireball soccer makes the cut on the list of the weirdest sports in the world. This game started in the United Kingdom in 1297. It is precisely what you expect, kerosene-soaked coconut on fire. Players are barefoot when playing this game, as if that is not enough. Standard soccer rules apply, and whoever scores the most goals wins.
10. Cheese Rolling
The craziest thrills and spills took place on an unfeasibly steep hill in Gloucestershire as an international field took part in the annual cheese-rolling race.
The helterskelter tumble down Cooper’s Hill, near Brockworth, in pursuit of a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese has been staged for decades, possibly centuries.
Now it attracts competitors and spectators from across the globe and such is the international appeal that the BBC livestreamed the races, sometimes having to apologise for the ripe language that was almost inevitable at such an adrenaline-fuelled event.
The origin of the competition is unknown. Some believe it came from claiming grazing rights on the common and land around Cooper’s Hill; others think it could have been a fertility ritual.
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