The judges of the prestigious Gilbert et Gaillard international wine competition were duped into awarding this year’s gold medal to a €2.50 ($2.70) supermarket wine they deemed “exceptional”.

Ever wonder how the average person chooses wine at a supermarket? Well, it turns out that having one or more medals plastered on the bottle can increase sales by up to 15 percent, so it’s no wonder that wineries take wine-tasting competitions very seriously. But does winning such medals actually reflect the quality of the wine, or are these contests simple money-making events that charge winemakers hefty sums for participation and the chance to increase sales? Eric Boschman, once named Belgium’s best sommelier, and the team at On n’est pas des pigeons, a Belgian consumer magazine and television program, decided to find out by taking the worst supermarket wine they could find and registering it in a prestigious wine competition.

Read More »

SpoGomi, a combination of ‘sport’ and ‘gomi’ (Japanese for rubbish) is a popular competition in which teams of 3-5 people try to pick up the most trash of the highest quality in a set period of time.

Japan recently announced that it would host the first SpoGomi World Cup in November of 2023, with teams from all over the world scouring the streets of Tokyo in search of trash to pick up. Each team of three players will have 60 minutes to gather the most trash from a designated area while trying to sort it correctly into color-coded bags for each type (burnable waste, recyclable plastic, metal cans, etc.). When the time is up, the trash will be weighted and checked for proper sorting, and the team with the most trash wins. In case of a tie, the winner is determined by the quality of the trash, with points awarded by type (cigarette butts win the most points).

Read More »

In case the name ‘car-jitsu’ wasn’t clear enough, this new contact sport that’s getting a lot of attention on Russian social media is basically jiu-jitsu in a car.

If you were to make a list of the most awkward places to grapple and wrestle in, the car would probably rank pretty high, and that’s precisely what makes car-jitsu so intriguing. Invented a couple of years ago by Vikentiy Mikheev, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Judo black belt and a professional mixed martial arts fighter, car-jitsu challenges practitioners to subdue their opponent in the small confines of a car. Everything inside the car – including the seat belts, steering wheel, mirrors and chairs – can be used to gain an upper hand in the match, but, just like in regular jiu-jitsu, hittinh is not allowed.

Read More »

A Japanese engineering university in Kumamoto is famous for holding a unique competition, challenging students to build toothpick towers that can resist a simulated earthquake.

As you probably already know, because of its location in the Circum-Pacific Mobile Belt, where there is constant seismic and volcanic activity, Japan is the world’s most earthquake-prone country. Even though Japan takes up only 0.25% of the land area on our planet, 18.5% of earthquakes in the world occur here. So I guess you can say that building earthquake-resistant architecture is paramount for the Japanese nation. To that end, one engineering school has been challenging students to come up with toothpick tower designs that can resist a simulated earthquake.

Read More »

Megavalanche is a unique enduro race that sees thousands of participants riding downhill on a glacier, 8,530 feet above sea level while trying to stay on their bikes and not get run over by the pack.

Downhill enduro racing usually involves a series of stages where competitors ride individually against the clock, trying to get the best time possible. The contestant with the fastest time on average wins. But Megavalanche, a monster of a race that has been taking place every year – except 2020 – since 1995, is different. It is the only endura downhill race with a mass start on a glacier, a detail that creates the ideal condition for the chaos and mayhem that Megavalanche is famous for. Imagine 2,000 bike riders setting off on a snowy track, reaching speeds of around 75mph, losing control of their mountain bikes, and trying not to get swept away by the human avalanche forming all around them. That’s the starting portion of Megavalanche in a nutshell.

Read More »

Described as “the world’s first premium ultra,” the Highland Kings marathon requires participants to pay a £15,499 ($21,500) entrance fee. That makes it the most expensive ultramarathon on Earth.’

Ultramarathons aren’t usually associated with luxury, but Primal Adventure, an outdoor adventure business based in Scotland, is hoping to change that by organizing what many are calling the most expensive ultra marathon in history. The Highland Kings, a four-day camping race covering a distance of 120 miles on the west coast of Scotland, is limited to only 40 participants, each of whom will be required to pay an entrance fee of £15,499. The premium cost will give them access to luxury amenities like butlers, Michelin-star chefs, and hydrotherapy pools, among others.

Read More »

Galina Chuvina, a retired woman from the small Russian town of Sasovo, took up knife throwing as a hobby and ended up becoming an eight time national champion, European champion and even world champion.

Chuvina was 56 years old when she discovered knife throwing, back in 2007. The pensioner had landed a simple job in the coat check section of the local pool, taking people’s clothes and handing out numbers. One day, two young people came by to discuss the possibility of opening a knife throwing club on the premises, and Galina became one of the first people to enroll for knife throwing training. Just a month and a half into her training, the pensioner learned that her home town would soon host a knife throwing competition with around 50 participants, including special forces soldiers, professional knife throwers, as well as amateurs like her. She signed up, and shocked the audience by wining first place.

Read More »

The Andler Hillclimb is an annual dirt bike competition that has dirt bikers from around Europe try to reach the top of a treacherous hillside course in Belgium. It’s been held every year for the last two decades, but so far no one has been able to reach the top.

The so-called “impossible climb”, starts out as rough gravel and then switches over to a washboard of rough cliff face designed to throw riders off and send them and their bikes tumbling back down to the base of the hill. It’s not the angle of attack that’s the problem, according to most riders, but the sudden change of ride surface that makes keeping control of the bike and reaching the top so damn hard. Some fly off their bike early during the climb, while others get painfully close the the finish line, but in the end they all succumb to the power of gravity before reaching their goal.

Read More »

It seems like only yesterday flip-phones were the hottest handhelds available, but nowadays they are practically antiques and companies are making news headlines for paying people to use them over smartphones.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first ever flip-phone, Utah based Internet and phone service provider Frontier Communications has announced it will pay someone $1,000 to ditch their modern smartphone and switch to a flip-phone for a week. The lucky winner will have to record how long it takes them to do simple tasks like texting and sending emails with the obsolete handheld, how much sleep they get, and whether their productivity increases during the one-week experiment.

  Read More »

Copa Ataúdes or Coffin Cup, a yearly futsal tournament hosted by the Peruvian city of Juliaca, has been dubbed the world’s most depressing sports competition for offering coffins as prizes to the three best teams.

The Juliaca Coffin Cup is not your usual futsal tournament. It’s a competition between teams representing the twelve largest funeral houses in the  Puno Region of southeastern Peru, so it kind of makes sense that the main prizes be something representative of the funeral business. Still, fighting your heart out on the pitch for an expensive casket you have to share with five other teammates doesn’t exactly sound worthwhile. That didn’t stop the winning team from parading their $1,300 luxury coffin on their shoulders and singing “Olé, olé, campeon!” at the end of the final match, though.

Read More »

This month, Kyle Messier, a 31-year-old bike mechanic, won the Big Red Gravel Run, a 100 kilometer bike race that takes place in Harrington, Quebec. While this is an impressive achievement on its own, what makes Kyle’s win truly exceptional is that he had already pedaled more than 650 kilometers to the race site, and a few hours after winning he got back on his bike and pedealed back home to Waterloo.

Messier’s journey from Waterloo to Harrington took him 3.5 days to complete. After winning first place in the rural cycling race,he celebrated with some pizza, slept for a few hours in his tent, and then got started on the 3.5-day journey back home. And it gets even more remarkable still; Kyle was not only completely new to bicycle racing, but he also managed to win the 100-kilometer Big Red Gravel Run while suffering from an abscessed tooth.

Read More »

The Japanese are no strangers to unusual competitions, so I guess it makes sense that they’ve found a way to turn a rage-induced reaction like flipping a table into an annual contest.

On June 16, a shopping mall in Japan’s Iwata Prefecture hosted the 12th annual World Chabudai-Gaeshi Tournament, an offbeat competition where participants try to flip a small tea table as far as possible. The premise is pretty simple: anyone can sign up for the competition, from young children to the elderly, and the goal is to flip the small wooden tea table as hard as possible to send the fake food on top of it flying as far as possible. In fact, the winner is judged not by how far they flip the table, but how far a plastic fish set on top of it travels.

Read More »

Ultrarunner Kelly Agnew, 45, has been disgraced and stripped of his titles after an investigation by event officials revealed that he had hidden inside porta-pottys to win races.

Agnew had one the last four 48-hour Across the Years ultramarathons since 2014, when he was the first to run 201.5 miles within the allotted time, but event officials have disqualified and banned him from all future races for cheating. According to a Facebook post by event organizers, Agnew was seen “registering laps without running the complete loop of the course,” instead hiding inside a port-a-potty for seven minutes before getting out to cross the start/finish mat. The experienced runner would apparently time his breaks in the toilet to keep his mile pace consistent.

Read More »

It may sound crazy, but a mere £10.50 ($14) could actually make you the owner of a swanky English mansion in Devon which also comes with a Rolls-Royce, £50,000 in cash and all sorts of extra goodies, including a fully stocked wine cellar, a 3-hole golf course, a tractor and the whole house staff for an entire year.

If you consider yourself a lucky person, and have a few bucks to spare why not enter the “Win a Millionaire Mansion Competition” launched by an actual English millionaire looking to make a profit and have some fun in the process. The owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, sees this offbeat lottery as a way to sell the property without too much hassle and make a lucky someone’s dreams come true.

Read More »

We’ve all got our physical flaws and learn to live with them. Well, some don’t, but that’s what plastic surgery is for. There is one person in Zimbabwe who not only relishes his ugliness but also get awards for it. William Masvinu from Epworth has been crowned Zimbabwe’s Mr Ugly 2017 and couldn’t be prouder! It’s his fourth title, and he’s fully convinced his claim is undisputed.

William was happy with the “recognition” in general but especially pleased to wrest back the title he lost to another contestant last year. Winning ugly contests apparently requires preparation, just as beauty pageants, and the 43-year-old unemployed man will now be prepping to wow the world in the Mr Ugly World competition set to take place next year in South Africa.

Read More »