By Tanguy de l’Espinay 

Let’s discover those absurd sports which make the happiness of a lot of tourists in the deep Finland, each summer…      

The Finn is a sportsman. Everyone knows that. “Every little Finnish are imbued with sports culture from the age of two years, when they put on their first skis ” says a tourist guide about Finland. And cross-country skiing, besides ! Here in Finland, it is The sport, they even use  roller-ski during the summer ! There is no doubt that they have heard the advice given by Paavo Nurmi, the famous long-distance runner, at the end of his career: “Do not let the modern means of transportation kill your desire of physical exercise”.                                                                

            Anyway, Finnish knew very well how to travel before the arrival of these modern means of transportation … They had often to invent some techniques to cross this big country, and some enter the folklore : One of the most popular demonstrations consisted for a long time of a boat-race between villager up to the Church ! And, while we conceive sports in Finland as something athletic and rigorous, the less we know about this creative and unusual side of the Finnish sport, which continues up to the present day! 

How can one not be amazed with such creativity, when looking at the list of the Finnish non-conventional sports ? It is during the Summer that all the Finnish genius can be seen: You can find in  the most isolated villages of Finland some completely absurd sportive events, which make the happiness of a lot of tourists.  

Let’s begin with the most popular one : the “wife-carrying”. Created in 1992 in Sonkajarvi,  400 km in the North of Helsinki, it consists of a man carrying a woman through an obstacle course.  Originally, a legend tells that a bachelor native of the village would have stolen a woman in the nearby village, and carried her on his back. Today, there are world championships on this modality, and it has already been exported to Estonia and to the United States of America …   

Due to the average Finn body structure, that one can tell to be quite strong, a group of people decided to create a pacific sport where nothing could be damaged or even broken: the imaginary guitar! A world championship of “air guitar” is organized in Oulu since 1996 …Finns are know to be passionate about “their” Nokia. Bingo! New cliché, new idea for an absurd sport : a world championship on throwing mobile phones, which takes place since 2000, at the end of August, near Savolinna.  You can be evaluated according to the length or according to the style of the thrown … 

What other cliché can one mentions about the Finn? The sauna of course! And since 1998, the sauna does not escape this absurd rule: Heinola organizes the championships of stamina in the overheated sauna … 110°C … Absolutely inconceivable for a foreigner !Finland in Summer is known to be “hell” because of the mosquitoes. No problem! A championship of mosquitoes’ killing makes possible every year, in Pelkosenniemi, Lapland, to kill thousands of them. And what’s Finland during the winter? Snow,  snow and  snow … That’s why since 2002, Hyrynsalmi, which organises a championship of football on marshy ground in Summer, organizes quite naturally a championship of football on powder snow in Winter !Of course, my will, by linking these sports to clichés about Finland, is far from presenting Finns as beasts spending all their time in a sauna with their Nokia, so they can escape the snow in Winter, or the mosquitoes in summer… The only truth which emanates from these comments, is that Finnish people have a huge sense of humor and entertainment !