Photo: Janne Körkkö for the New York Times
A team from Vihti, Finland, competing in the country’s 20th annual Swamp Soccer World Championships. Their mascot, a badger doll, is the one in the cage.
Gotta love those Finns. They have possibly the best education system in the world and all those unusual contests like wife carrying and cellphone tossing. Long, dark winters must make for desperate ideas about how to have fun in summer.
Andrew Keh writes at the New York Times, “There’s something strange going on in Finland. Over the past few decades, as it has all but disappeared from the global sports stage, this humble Nordic nation has sort of lost its sports mind.
“More than 2,000 people ventured to the remote backwaters of central Finland recently for the 20th annual Swamp Soccer World Championships. If you and your spouse want to compete in the Wife Carrying World Championships, you must come to Finland. The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships? Finland. The World Berry Picking Championship and the Air Guitar World Championships? Finland and Finland.
“ ‘We have some weird hobbies,’ said Paivi Kemppainen, 26, a staff member at the swamp soccer competition and master of the understatement.
“Just look at swamp soccer in Hyrynsalmi, a place where Jetta can achieve a small level of celebrity over the years. Jetta is a stuffed badger ensconced in a bird cage. She acts as a mascot of sorts for a team of 12 friends who make the seven-hour drive each year from Vihti, near Helsinki, for the competition. They bought the doll seven years ago from a junk store at a highway rest stop, and her fame around the swamp has grown ever since. A couple of years ago, she was interviewed by a local newspaper. …
“On Saturday morning … a bottle of vodka was being passed around (their preferred way, apparently, of warming up). It was about 10 o’clock. Soon it would be time for their first game of the day. They set Jetta aside and stripped off their outerwear, revealing skimpy blue wrestling singlets.
“Before they treaded into the mud, they were asked a question: Why?
“ ‘You can say you’re world champions of swamp soccer,’ said Matti Paulavaara, 34, one of the team members, after a contemplative pause. ‘How many can say that?’
“The genesis of swamp soccer was in 1998, when creative town officials in Hyrynsalmi cooked up a festival-like event that would make use of the area’s vast swamplands. Thirteen teams showed up for the first tournament. Since then, the competitive field has grown to about 200 teams. …
“People striding on seemingly firm ground would disappear suddenly into the soft earth, as if descending a stairway. Some tottered on their hands and knees, like babies. Others stood still, until they were waist-deep in muck. The scores were generally low. Many of the players were drunk. …
You play, you lose, you win — no one cares,’ said Sami Korhonen, 25, of Kajaani, who was playing in the tournament for the ninth time. ‘The whole game is so tough, you’re totally wiped out when you’re done.’ ”
More at the New York Times, here.
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