Curious Hobbies for Curious People [2] Quiz

Answer: Chessboxing

The whole thing sounds like somebody lost a bet. Nevertheless, chessboxing is a real sport. Players alternate between rounds of playing chess and beating each other up, with the bout ending by checkmate, knockout, or technical knockout. Players can also lose by running out of chess time, resignation, or disqualification.

The modern sport was the brainchild of Dutch performance artist Iepe Rubingh. He in turn was inspired by the 1992 graphic novel by Enki Bilal, "Froid Équateur", which introduces a very similar game. Rubingh staged the first public chessboxing event in Berlin in 2003.

Answer: Cheese rolling

Cheese rolling sounds almost reasonable until you actually watch people doing it. The event takes place at Cooper's Hill near Brockworth. There, competitors stampede downhill after a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. The wheel gets a head start, of course, so the competitive advantage definitely goes to the cheese.

The event is now internationally known and is one of Gloucestershire's more unusual attractions. I'll see you at the bottom of the hill.

Answer: Bossaball

Bossaball was developed by Filip Eyckmans, a Belgian living in Spain at the time. The idea came from his frenetic love of soccer, volleyball, music, dance, and capoeira that he encountered during trips to Brazil. He will go down as the man who dared to say that volleyball was simply not bouncing people high enough.

The game is played by two teams on a giant inflatable court, with a trampoline positioned in front of the net on each side. Players can use their hands like volleyball players or their feet and other body parts like soccer players. Meanwhile the trampoline adds some unnecessary but quite flashy gymnastics-style airtime. Music is part of the whole deal too, and one of the referees (the "samba Referee") doubles as a DJ.

Answer: Bog snorkelling

Bog snorkelling is a real sport, and it is every bit as gloriously odd as the name would suggest. It takes place at Waen Rhydd Peat Bog near Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, where competitors race through a water-filled trench wearing snorkels, masks, and flippers. The course is two lengths of about 60 yards (about 55 meters) each.

Conventional swimming strokes are not allowed. Speed is the aim, but elegance is not encouraged, at least based on the videos I've seen. Competitors propel themselves through the muddy water mainly with their flippers. Current rules require that the hands and arms be kept below the water line. Doggy-paddlers, this is your sport!

Answer: Underwater hockey

Underwater hockey was originally called "Octopush" in Britain. It's played on the bottom of a swimming pool by two teams trying to push a heavy puck into the opposing team's goal. The players wear masks, snorkels and fins, but the snorkel is rather useless while you're actually down there because, inconveniently, people still need air to breathe. Players repeatedly dive, maneuver the puck with a short little stick, and surface for a breath before heading back into the underwater scrum.

The modern game uses a plastic-coated lead puck weighing roughly 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds).

Answer: Wife-carrying

Wife-carrying traces its origins to Sonkajarvi, Finland, where the first Finnish championship was held all the way back in 1992. The modern competition is an obstacle course race where one teammate carries another through obstacles. It includes a water section, so that's fun. The sport is based partly on local legends about a 19th-century bandit named Herkko "Ronkainen the Robber," although that's probably more folklore than history.

The most famous technique is the Estonian carry (not shown in this image). That's where the wife hangs upside down on the runner's back, with her legs around the husband's and shoulders, her arms around his waist, and her face probably closer to his butt than she'd like.

Answer: Swamp Football

Swamp football (or swamp soccer) made its big debut in Finland in 1998. The idea is generally credited to Esa Romppainen, a skier who used swamp terrain for summer training. From there it became an international event.

Playing soccer in a swamp makes the pretty familiar game quite a bit less familiar. Matches are played on wet, muddy ground. Meanwhile players can quickly find themselves wading, slipping, crawling, and occasionally wondering why they did not take up chessboxing instead.

Answer: Bo-taoshi

Bo-taoshi is a Japanese team sport whose name roughly translates as "pole toppling". That's exactly what it is. The most famous version is played at Japan's National Defense Academy and pits two teams of 150 players against each other. Each team is divided into 75 attackers and 75 defenders. The attackers try to bring down the opposing team's pole while the defenders create a massive human barricade around their own. The objective is to tilt the opponent's pole down to 30 degrees from the vertical.

There's also one player perched on top of each pole, because otherwise it would just be silly. They try to counter-balance any assault against the pole.

Answer: Oil wrestling

Now, that's love. Love of the game, that is, and the game is oil wrestling, known as "yagli gures" in Turkish. It's a traditional form of wrestling in which competitors get slicked up in oil before grappling on grass. The wrestlers, called pehlivans, wear heavy leather pants called kispet. The oil though, definitely takes center stage as it makes it much more of a challenge to get a grip on a wiggling shirtless opponent.

The oil isn't just there to make everyone look marinated. It changes the entire grappling game by making conventional grips slippery. Wrestlers have to rely heavily on leverage, technique, balance, and some rather determined moves.

The sport's most famous event is the annual Kirkpinar festival in Edirne, which is a tradition that dates back centuries. UNESCO added the Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Festival to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

Answer: Tuna tossing

I told you these were "curious hobbies". Tuna tossing is the highlight of the Tunarama Festival in Port Lincoln, South Australia. Port Lincoln is a coastal town with a long history tied to - you got it! - tuna fishing. The competition began in 1979 as a way to celebrate local fishermen, known to traditionally toss tuna from their boats onto waiting trucks when they unloaded their catch. Then, presumably, Bruce said to Joey, "My toss was way longer than yours", and a sport was born.

Competitors use a hammer-throwing-style technique, spinning before launching the fish where fish have rarely been launched before. Real tuna were used in the competition until 2008, when a weighted rubber replica became the norm. Former Olympic hammer thrower Sean Carlin set a record in 1998 at 37.23 meters (122 feet). Follow me for more information you never wanted to know.