Quirky ‘Arse Bombing’ Sport Is All About Making a Splash

A cannonball splash is the easiest (and most fun) way to dive, but did you know it’s a legitimate sport as well? It’s officially called ‘splashdiving’, but fans lovingly refer to it as ‘arse bombing’!

While regular divers are judged on how smoothly they land in the water, in splashdiving it’s the exact opposite that counts – points are awarded for the size of the splash created on impact. That sounds painful, but leading competitors say it doesn’t really hurt as much as you’d think. “The pain is minimal,” according to the reigning arse-bombing world champion Rainhard Riede from Bavaria.  And in the words of arse-bomber Lukas Eglseder, “You get used to it.”

Splashdiving has its own set of rules, and believe it or not, competitors can choose from 13 different styles of diving. The classic ‘arse bomb’ involves landing bum first with the knees tucked into the stomach. Other techniques include ‘the cat’, ‘the chair’, and ‘the plank’. Contestants are required to announce their moves in advance, and are given four chances to make a big impression.

splashdiving3 Read More »

Fowling, a Quirky Sport That Combines Football and Bowling

A new sport that combines football and bowling is taking Michigan by storm. Fowling is the brainchild of entrepreneur Chris Hutt who’s so confident the hybrid sport is going to be huge that  he  has converted a 34,000-square-foot industrial site into what he calls the Fowling Warehouse.

Hutt said that he invented the game years ago along with a few buddies, while tailgating at the Indianapolis 500. It started off as an accident, when a couple of guys were playing catch with a football and someone made a bad pass. The ball rolled and knocked over a few bowling pins that were lying around. Inspiration struck right at that magical moment, and fowling (pronounced foal-ing) was born. Hutt and his friends quickly set up a few spare pins at the end of the lane and knocked them out with the football all day, making up the rules as they went along. And by the end of the day, they had the entire sport fleshed out.

Fowling-sport3

Read More »

Game of Drones – Australia’s Awesome Underground Drone Racing League

Drone racing is a mushrooming trend in Australia, catering to a growing band of enthusiasts looking to fulfill their need for speed. The races, organised by underground ‘leagues’, generally take place in rundown warehouses, farms, and go-kart tracks in the fringe suburbs of various cities.

The relatively unknown sport is called FPV (first person racing). Participants spend countless hours custom building their quadcopters, fitting them with onboard cameras and ‘blinging’ them up with LED lights. During the actual events, racers don special goggles – sometimes held together with gaffer tape – to give them a drone’s-eye view as they steer their machines around the course. So it’s a lot like video gaming, except players get to control a real device instead of a virtual one.

“It’s addictive. It’s like playing a video game,” says drone racer Darren French, who has clocked over 60 kmph. “It’s fast. The more you do it, the more you want to fly.”

drone-racing-league2 Read More »

Chinese Football Fans Build Their Own Pitch on Roof of Car Park Building

A group of football fans in Zhenzhou, China, have literally taken football to new heights by building their very own 900-square-meter pitch on the roof of a car park building, right in the city center.

XuGong, the mastermind behind this impressive undertaking, told Chinese media that he has been a huge football fan since childhood, but growing up in Zhengzhou city, he always had problems finding a venue to practice his favorite sport. The only available one was located too far away and he could only use it once a week. After nearly a decade of frustration, Xu decided to fix the problem by building a pitch of his own. He convinced his friends and fellow football fans to pool all their savings into building their very own football field, but finding a piece of land in their busy city was a huge challenge. After months of searching, they came up with the genius idea on the roof of a building.

rooftop-football-field

Read More »

Medieval Fighting Meets MMA in Russia’s Newest Combat Sport

While Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) matches generally incorporate striking and grappling techniques from a variety of other combat sports and martial arts, the use of medieval fighting techniques is unheard of. Until now, that is. St. Petersburg based MMA promotion M-1 Global plans to introduce a new kind of MMA events featuring sword-wielding knights in armor, called M-1 Medieval.

It all started when M-1 had the brilliant idea of staging medieval sword fights as filler during MMA events last year. The response was so phenomenal that they decided to make this unique form of mixed martial arts a permanent fixture. The first official M-1 Medieval division fight took place on April 10 in Moscow. “I liked the fans’ reaction when we did it for the first time in St. Petersburg at M-1 Challenge 50,” said M-1 president Vadim Finkelchtein. “They seemed to really like it. They were impressed and supported the knights. So, I thought it was worth continuing.”

“At the time, the knight-fight was to fill the pause between the undercard and main card fights,” he added. “If we find enough fighters to make enough fights, we will have a separate medieval show with its own weight categories, title fights and champions.”

M-1-Medieval-fighting

Read More »

Chinese Athlete Has Sights Set on Butt Skipping Record

Butt skipping is like a bizarre cousin of jumping rope – it involves bouncing up and down on your behind while twirling a rope underneath. The relatively lesser-known sport has gained prominence in south east Asia ever since a Japanese athlete took the world title in 2006. Now, Chinese gymnastics expert Yi Zhihua has set his heart on becoming the world champion.

20-year-old Zhihua wants to beat the world record of 166 butt skips in one minute and says he’s nearly accomplished the feat during training. “I’m up to 152 per minute – you have to get through the pain barrier but after that when your butt is numb you can really notch up the numbers,” he explained. “I am pretty certain I will have it cracked within the week and will start the New Year as the world champion.”

butt-skipping

Read More »

SnookBall – A Sport That Lets You Play Billiards with Your Feet

SnookBall is a combination of snooker and football – it’s crazy fun because you actually get to kick the balls into pockets instead of using a cue stick. The sport is played on a giant billiards table that multiple players can walk on. All the rules are the same as snooker, except that you use your feet instead of a cue and the balls are replaced by footballs.

The wacky sport is the brainchild of a couple of French entrepreneurs – Aurélien and Samuel – who are well known for their weird ideas. It is generally a two player game, but the table can accommodate up to four players. All the footballs retain the look of standard billiards balls, but are obviously larger and lighter. The white striker ball is slightly heavier than the rest, just to make the game more interesting.

snookball

Read More »

Woodkopf – The Wacky Czech Sport You’ve Probably Never Heard of Before

Woodkopf is a crazy new sport invented in the Czech Republic that’s been gaining quite a lot of national media attention lately. The popular sport involves a pair of opponents wearing two-meter wooden boards on their heads and trying to knock the other’s board down without dropping their own. As strange as it sounds, a rousing match of Woodkopf can be quite exciting to watch.

The wacky sport can be traced back to July of 1992, when it was practiced during a cultural festival of art school graduates in Prague. Woodkopf (which literally translates to ‘wooden head’) is popular partly due to the fact that the game is simple, inexpensive and requires no complex equipment, but also because it never fails to supply a good dose of humor.

Woodkopf2

Read More »

Struggling Korean Baseball Team Replaces Fans with Cheering Robots

A struggling South Korean Major League baseball team has come up with a novel idea to boost players’ morale. They’re replacing human fans with robots called ‘Fanbots’, all in a bid to improve the atmosphere at their matches.

The promo video for ‘Fanbot – the world’s first cheering robot’ rides high on the emotions involved while watching a match. “Fans of Hanwha Eagles always come to the stadium to cheer for the team,” the video states. “But those who cannot come to the stadium watch the game on the web or on their phones and cheer through commenting online. What if there was a robot cheering for those fans?”

It’s not easy being a fan of the Hanwha Eagles – most fans are subject to ridicule because of the team’s poor performance. The Hanwha Eagles have suffered over 400 losses in the past five years. Fans of the team are regarded with sympathy – they’ve even been dubbed ‘Buddhist Saints’ and ‘Hanwha Chickens’ by fans of other teams. The humiliation has been so great that many fans don’t feel like attending games anymore. Others simply do not have the time.

fanbots-korea

Read More »

Chinese City Builds World’s First Rectangular Running Track

Sports officials in Tonghe County in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province have built the world’s first and only rectangular running track. That’s a weird shape for a track, but their reason for building it is weirder – because they couldn’t get an oval one ready in time for an inspection!

The running track was built as a part of a larger, big-budget project – the renovation of Tonghe County’s 10,000-square foot stadium. Local authorities were behind schedule and time was running out. With a Communist Party inspection looming over their heads, the managers of the project simply decided to ditch the traditional oval design and go for a simpler rectangular one instead.

While the rest of the stadium looks brilliant with its perfectly laid grass and excellent seating facilities, the rectangular track sticks out like a sore thumb. The original track at the stadium was actually oval, but the officials explained that it was so worn out that it couldn’t just be used as a template for re-painting. The inspection was a last-minute decision, and the managers had to complete the track in a hurry, so they simply decided on a rectangle with 90-degree bends that were easier to measure and lay out.

square-running-track

Read More »

Portland’s Unique Zoobombing Scene – Grown-Up Racers Riding Tiny Children’s Bicycles

A group of bikers in Portland, Oregon, share the most unusual love of children’s bicycles. Several riders take to the hills of Washington Park every Sunday with a single mission – to speed downhill on tiny kids’ bicycles, after the sun goes down. Seasoned bikers ride at the front of the pack, while beginners follow their lead. They all take off at the same time, at the countdown ‘Three, two, one – Zoobomb!’

The unusual hobby is called ‘Zoobombing’, and it was born in Portland, one of America’s most bike-friendly cities. The ‘zoo’ denotes the fact that participants start at a spot near the Oregon Zoo, from where they speed downhill, while ‘bomb’ is a term used to describe biking downhill at very high speeds.

In zoobombing, the most glorious riders have the smallest wheels. The ideal size is the 12-inch, designed for use by three-year-olds. Those who aren’t comfortable with wheels so small prefer to ride 16 and 20-inch wheels. “On a tiny bike, you feel like you’re going faster,” said April Cox, a 16-incher who has been zoobombing for the past nine years.

zoobombing

Read More »

Teqball – An Awesome Combination of Football and Table Tennis

What do you get when you combine Table Tennis and Football, and throw in a dash of technology? The answer is Teqball, an addictive new sport that’s becoming more popular every day. The sport involves the bouncing of a ball between opponents, off a highly sophisticated table designed to keep things fair.

To play a game of Teqball, all you need are a Teqboard and a ball. According to the official website, the Teqboard is a sporting equipment, very similar to a ping-pong table, that’s been designed keeping in mind the rules of mathematics and physics. So a ball will bounce off any point on the board, making it easy to reach and control. Although you can’t touch the board, it can withstand a great amount of pressure, making it durable and safe to use.

The ‘net’ at the center of the board is made of polycarbonate/plexiglass, ensuring that the ball bounces off it in a fair manner. Thanks to the unique design of the Teqboard, the only thing that matters in the game is talent; there’s no room for luck. The ball used for playing is a regular football, preferably a FIFA size 4.

Teqball

Read More »

9-Year-Old Basketball Player Gets Recruited by Miami University Because She Is That Good

While most fourth graders in the United States are grappling with the basics of the sport, nine-year-old Jaden Newman is already playing basketball like a pro. In fact she’s so good that she’s been approached by Miami University – they’ve asked her to keep them in mind when the time comes for her to make her college choice. Getting recruited by a college-level team is no mean feat, and it’s really astonishing that Jaden has managed to achieve it at such a young age.

Playing basketball alongside older players isn’t new to Jaden – she’s already been through two seasons on the girl’s high school varsity team at Downey Christian School, a private school in Orlando, Florida. Her stats are mind blowing; at just 4 foot 5 inches tall, she’s averaged 14.5 points and 7.5 assists per game while playing against teenagers this past season. Her performance gained her national prominence, and now that she has the offer from Miami University, she’s believed to be the youngest female player to ever get recruited by a Division I program.

Jaden-Newman

Read More »

Legally Blind Football Player Signs with Top College Team

17-year-old Aaron Golub from Newton, Massachusetts, is legally blind. His right eye does not function at all, and he has very little vision in his left. But what he lacks in vision, the boy makes up with sheer determination. He recently achieved his lifelong dream – a chance to play football at university.

Getting a spot on a college football team is no joke, a lot of kids with perfect vision can’t make it. But Aaron, a senior at Newton High School, has gone and done it despite all the odds against him. Through sheer hard work, he’s managed to secure a preferred walk-on spot at Tulane University, one of the top college football teams in the United States. He has been signed on as a long snapper, a position that requires tremendous speed and accuracy.

While most people believe you need natural talent to be good at sports like football, Aaron was quite mediocre when he first started to play. According to his coach Chris Rubio, “He was very, very, very, we’ll say ‘average at best’ when he started. But the kid is just so determined. You tell him what to do, and consider it done.” For several years, Aaron relentlessly practiced snapping a ball into a target every morning before school and on weekends.

Aaron-Golub-football-player

Read More »

Amazing Ping Pong Player with No Arms Will Convince You That Nothing Is Impossible

Egyptian para-table tennis player Ibrahim Hamato has no arms, yet he can put almost any amateur ping-pong player to shame. How he is able to handle the paddle with his mouth and actually direct his shots is still a mystery to me, but watching him play is fascinating

“I had an accident when I was 10 years old but I loved table tennis,” Ibrahim says. “Three years after my accident, I wanted to play again holding the racket under my arm, but it didn’t work out. After trying different options, I found myself playing with my mouth.” The inspiring athlete was invited to be the guest of honor at the World Team Table Tennis Championships held in Tokyo this year. A short video clip shows him playing with some of the world’s best players – and they look like they’re struggling to keep up with him! His serve is incredible, and some of his shots are truly spectacular. “I feel very happy that I got this invitation from Mr. Sharara,” he said.  It is a big reward for me to watch the best players in the world in Tokyo and I hope this shows people that nothing is impossible as long as you work hard.”

ibrahim-hamato

Read More »