Once a year, my news filter for ‘Estonia’ inevitably brings up the annual wife-carrying championship in Sonkajärvi, which Estonians have won every single year since 1998. Two Estonian brothers have dominated the championship since 2000 and one of them holds the record: 55.5 seconds. The track is 253.5 metres of sand, grass and asphalt, and with two dry obstacles and one water obstacle.

This year I found a video of the competition (via AOL Fanhouse):

I was impressed by the effort some of the contestants were putting in. Both the runners and the women they were carrying were clearly taking this pretty seriously. These were athletic guys running hard, and women holding on hard, not beer-bellied men having a bit of fun (although there were some of those, too, given that first prize is the woman’s weight in beer).