How do I make this team? Five sports you have never heard of
Andrew Davidson, Staff Writer
“There’s something for everyone” said a wise man once. This is especially true of the people who participate in a sport called extreme ironing.
Behind our favorite professional sports, there is an entire world of odd activities people have devoted their lives to.
Created in 1997 by a man named Phil Shaw, extreme ironing is exactly as it sounds. People iron their clothes while performing extreme tasks.
Since its creation, extreme ironing has become a real professional sport, featuring its first world championship in 2002. Each year after, more people have attempted ironing under more extreme circumstances, and numerous records have been broken.
In 2003, John Roberts and Ben Gibbons broke the altitude record by ironing a flag on mount Everest. In 2004 the record was set by a group of 72 divers for the most people ironing underwater at once.
If you are in Gloucester, England for the Spring Bank holiday, stop by Cooper’s Hill to watch the annual rolling of the cheese. Featuring a wheel of local double Gloucester cheese, the rolling of the cheese has been a tradition for at least 600 years, dating back to the 1800’s.
Starting at the top of the hill, the cheese is given a second head start before the participants may pursue. Due to the steepness of the hill, the event is known to cause injury to participants, and the cheese can reach speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. The participant to catch the cheese is crowned the winner and gets to take the wheel home.
The next unusual sport is a hybrid that combines to polar opposite disciplines: chess and boxing.
The two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing until one win in either competition. The rules are the same as regular chess and boxing, they are just combined.
The idea of chess boxing began outside a boxing club in late 1970’s London, where brothers would play a round of chess after each boxing session. The first official chess boxing competition was held in Berlin in 2003.
The first world championship was held later that year in Amsterdam, where Dutch middleweight fighter Lepe Rubingh faced Jean Louis Veenstra. Rubingh came out victorious after Veenstra exceeded his chess time limit in the eleventh round.
Since then, chess boxing has grown to be a sport that is played around the world and has a world championship that is officiated by the world chess boxing organization.
Sepak Takraw is a popular sport in Southeast Asia and is a combination of soccer and volleyball.
The game is played like volleyball, where each team has three alternating touches to get the ball over the net and get it to touch the ground on the opponent’s side of the court. Though the use of hands and arms are prohibited.
The ball is a light plastic ball called a rattan and is played on a badminton height net.
Originally named Sepak Raga Jaring, Sepak Takraw was recognized as a professional sport in the 1960’s, becoming a medal event in the Southeast Asian Games. It is also considered Malaysia’s national sport.
For all the Harry Potter fans out there, quidditch is indeed a real sport that is played around the world.
The sport created by J.K Rowling, quidditch (or quadball) consists of two teams of seven players equipped with a broomstick and a primary objective of scoring the ball through one of the three hoops opposite them.
Every player must always keep the broomstick between their legs while on the pitch, and like the fictional game, there are three chasers, two beaters, one keeper, and one seeker.
The chaser’s job is to score points. The beaters throw dodgeballs at the chasers. When a chaser is struck, they are temporarily disabled, and must touch their own goalpost to enter back into the match.
The seekers enter the game after a certain amount of time has elapsed with the intention of catching the snitch. The snitch is a tennis ball inside a long sock hanging from the shorts of an official. The catching of the snitch awards the team 30 points and ends the match.
The real-life sport was created in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2007, the first quidditch world cup took place, with Middlebury College taking first place. Since 2012, there has been a quidditch world cup every two years featuring teams from North America, Europe and Australia.
