Strange Sports

In a sand-covered square in the heart of Florence, men in Renaissance costume gather each summer to play a game…

Few sports demand that an athlete throw a left hook in one breath and defend against a queen’s gambit in…

Hockey is loud. Sticks clatter, skates scrape, crowds roar. Underwater hockey is almost completely silent, because it is played along…

Most sports go to considerable lengths to prevent competitors from kicking one another in the shins. One English tradition makes…

There are rough sports, and then there is buzkashi. Across the steppes and valleys of Central Asia, dozens of horsemen…

To the uninitiated, sepak takraw looks like a magic trick that someone decided to turn into a competitive sport. A…

Some sports are born from ambition. Extreme ironing was born from a joke that refused to stay a joke. The…

There are uncomfortable sports, and then there is bog snorkelling. The small Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells has built a…

Among the world’s stranger competitive pursuits, few are as endearingly absurd as wife carrying. Known in Finland as eukonkanto, the…

Every spring, a grassy slope in Gloucestershire becomes the stage for one of the most gloriously reckless traditions in the…