A good sport should be two things: inexcusably dangerous and,
ultimately, completely pointless.
American sports feature way too many pads and helmets and, you
know, rules, so we've scoured the globe for the most awesome-and
often terrifying-alternatives.
#10.
The Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake

Where: A small corner of the British
Isles that time and genetics forgot.
What is it?
It involves up to 20 competitors chasing a block of cheese down a
hill. No, really.
The competitors climb up to the top of the almost-impossibly
steep Cooper's Hill and chase a large not-quite-round wheel of
double Gloucester cheese down to the bottom. The winner is the
first person over the line at the bottom of the slope, but
theoretically, the winner is supposed to be the person who catches
the cheese. The cheese, which is given a one-second head start,
reaches speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour, so unless a
competitor is the T-1000, or has managed to smuggle a motorcycle
to the top of the hill, it's not gonna happen.

Terrible injuries, however, are common.
Origins:
No one quite knows when the game started, but it is at least 200
years old, though some say it goes back further and was part of a
pagan healing ritual. Apparently to pagans, healing rituals meant
hurting yourself really badly.
Interesting fact:
After the final race, candy is thrown down the hill for a
children' 'scramble.' This has been attacked by children'
charities as being highly dangerous, but has been praised by
almost everyone else as being very funny.

Where: Ireland.
What is it?
An Irish sport which appears to be a hybrid of field hockey,
soccer, football and unremitting, pants-wetting terror.
The game is played with axe-like sticks called hurleys or
"camáns" and a small, hard ball. Two teams, each with
15 Irishmen of questionable mental stability attempt to score
goals by smacking the ball as hard as possible, at head height and
at terrifying speeds.

Origins:
Hurling' origins are based on some kind of energetic outdoor
activity participated in by ancient Gaels that most people refer
to as 'warfare.' When the Irish began to migrate overseas, they
attempted to set up hurling leagues in their adopted countries,
but everyone else was too frightened and/or mentally stable to
play.
Interesting fact:
Although a well-hit ball can travel at speeds of almost 100 miles
per hour, hurling players wear no protective gear. Players can
choose to wear a helmet, but many choose not to, figuring if God
had wanted men to wear helmets, he wouldn't have given them those
ball-deflecting skulls.
#8.
Eukonkanto (Wife Carrying)

Where: Finland.
What is it?
The "wife-carrying" thing isn't a metaphor. A gentleman
heaves his wife onto his back and races through a special obstacle
course, perhaps while she berates him the whole way about each
little mistake.

The rules say the "wife" that gets carried can be
your own, or a friend', or pretty much anyone'. The competitors
dash down a 250-meter track, with two jumps and a water trap. A
dropped wife incurs a 15-second penalty for the team and,
presumably, dog-turd casserole for a week.
Origins:
The sport originated years ago as a joke in Finland. We're not
sure if this is a damning indictment of Finnish sexual equality or
Finnish humor.
Interesting fact:
Cross-dressing NBA star Dennis Rodman competed in 2005, in an
attempt to suck in the last escaping molecules of athletic fame
available to him.

Where: Central Asia, principally
Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.
What is it?
The national sport of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and other
unpronounceable Central Asian nations, it involves a large amount
of ululating Arabs tearing around a large area on horseback,
trying to wrestle the carcass of a goat from each other in an
apparent effort to reaffirm every negative stereotype the world
has about them.
The two mounted teams try to throw the dead goat over a goal
line or into a tub. This elicits a great deal of enthusiasm, so we
assume it constitutes scoring a point. Play is rough, and
competitors often wear protective clothing to protect themselves
from other riders' boots, whips and probably stray bullets.

Origins:
We have no idea. Obviously when the good people of Central Asia
started this game, they were having too much fun to write anything
down for future posterity.
Interesting fact:
Buzkashi games can go on for several days, which says as much
about the stamina of the players as it does about the total lack
of any alternate form of entertainment in the regions the sport is
played.

Where: England, at Eton College.
What is it?
This mishmash of rugby and soccer has been played in one spot at
an exclusive English private school ... for more than 300
years. It happens on the same strip of land with a long,
slightly curved wall down one side and often devolves into a
multi-limbed pile of shrieking schoolboys.
Two teams try to get the ball into a scoring zone, then kick it
against a target (a garden door for one team and a tree for the
other). Sounds simple, until you realize that the method of
actually moving the ball into position involves all the players on
both teams piling up along the wall and slowly inching the ball
upfield, to the extreme discomfort of any players buried in the
pile who'll spend 30 minutes having their faces slowly scraped
along the mortar.

Every now and again, the ball pops free and someone boots it up
field, which precipitates a crazed scramble to retrieve the ball,
whereupon the whole process starts again.
Origins:
The first recorded incidence of the game being played was in 1766,
though the most important game of the year is the St. Andrews Day
game, first played in 1844. We like to pretend that it began to
give the English social elite something to do when they became
bored of shooting the working class or going to war against a
bunch of Pacific Islanders armed with sticks.
Interesting Fact:
If you like wild games with lots of scoring, well, too bad. The
last goal was scored in 1909. No kidding.
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