Wikipedia:Unusual articles/Sports

Sports

You take my knight?
I'll punch your face!

File:Estonian Carry style.jpg

The "Estonian Carry". Mmm.

1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech American football game	The most lopsided game in American football history (featuring the godfather of American football himself, John Heisman).
1992 Troy State vs. DeVry men's basketball game	The highest scoring NCAA basketball game ever.
1978 CONCACAF Champions' Cup	The only time in the history of association football in which an official championship ended up being championed ex aequo by more than one team, in this case there were three.
2005 United States Grand Prix	A race in which 14 drivers retired before the start of the race.
2014 Hiram vs. Mount St. Joseph women's basketball game	How a dying teenager's wish grew into one of the year's biggest stories in American sports.
Artistic roller skating	All the grace and charm of figure skating...but with roller skates.
AS Adema 149–0 SO l'Emyrne	Taking own goals to the extreme.
Australia 31–0 American Samoa	The most lopsided "fair" match in association football history since World War I.
Australian Football International Cup	The "World Cup" of Australian rules football...in which Australia does not participate.
Baseball metaphors for sex	Basic Instinct...? No, Baseball Instinct.
Bat and trap	An English bat-and-ball pub game.
Bladderball	Yale University's contribution to the world of team sports.
British baseball	Not Baseball in the United Kingdom, but an intermediate species between cricket and baseball played in the hinterlands of Wales and Western England.
Bog snorkelling	The noble art of competitive snorkelling through cold, noxious bog water.
Bottle-kicking	A ruleless drunken rugby-like sport played every Easter Monday since the 1700s in Hallaton, Leicestershire.
Butt fumble	Be careful where you run with that ball, Mark.
Chess boxing	A sport that alternates rounds of speed chess and boxing.
Collision in Korea	A WCW pay per view event in 1995 wasn't so unusual. A professional wrestling match in North Korea, however, is a once in a lifetime event.
Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake	An annual event held each May at Cooper's Hill near Gloucester.
Disco Demolition Night	What could go wrong with encouraging people to bring unwanted disco albums to a baseball doubleheader and blowing up the records between games?
Dwarf tossing	A sporting competition where padded dwarfs are thrown by competitors.
Dwile flonking	A sport that gives a new meaning to the term "drinking game".
Eton wall game	A sport played annually on St. Andrew's Day on a 5-by-110-metre (16 ft × 361 ft) field. The last goal was scored in 1909.
Extreme ironing	A sport whereby participants take an ironing board to a remote location and iron a few items of clothing.
Fair catch kick	A little-known way to score points in American football left over from rugby. It was last used successfully in the pro game in 1976.
Fierljeppen	A Frisian sport where the objective is to jump over a trench.
Football tennis	Wimbledon meets Wembley... in Czechoslovakia.
Heidi Game	The last-minute comeback in this American football game wasn't seen by television viewers, as the network cut off the game to show the children's film Heidi.
Henley-on-Todd Regatta	An Australian boat race that is cancelled when there is water in the river.
International Rutabaga Curling Championship	Rutabaga curling originated in the frosty December climes of Ithaca, New York.
Isner–Mahut match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships	A record-breaking 11-hour, 5-minute tennis match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.
Lawn mower racing	Leaves the lawn in a very poor condition.
Lingerie Football League	"Uniforms consist of helmets, shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, garter belts, bras, and panties." Renamed the Legends Football League in 2013, with the garters, bras, and panties replaced by slightly more modest performance sportswear.
Mall walking	Usually done with larger groups of senior citizens.
Muggle Quidditch	An international real-life sport, without magic objects.
Mythical national championship	When is a champion not exactly a champion?
New Testament athletic metaphors	Blessed are the healthy in heart...
One-armed versus one-legged cricket	According to Charles Dickens: "The one-legged men were pretty well with the bat, but they were rather beaten when it came to fielding."
Pillow Fight League	The first rule of Pillow Fight League is that you do not discuss Pillow Fight League.
Plainfield Teacher's College	Their American football team was un-beaten, un-tied...and non-existent.
The Play (Stanford vs. California)	Before going onto the field for your postgame musical performance, make sure the game is over.
Rocket Racing League	A racing league intending to use rocket-powered aircraft to race a closed-circuit air racetrack.
Smiggin Holes 2010 Winter Olympic bid	During the 2002 Winter Olympics, the two Australian comedians who gave the world Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat (see "Animals in sports" below) launched a bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in New South Wales, Australia.
Sports-related curses	A variety of excuses for bad performance.
Stoolball	An ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders.
Ten Cent Beer Night	A Major League Baseball game that tried to attract fans with a beer promotion got progressively worse, until an all-out riot broke out at Cleveland Stadium.
Traditions and anecdotes associated with the Stanley Cup	An ice hockey trophy with a long history of abuse, superstition, and tests of buoyancy.
Ultimate Typing Championship	Created in order to promote typing and find the fastest typists in the United States of America.
Underarm bowling incident of 1981	An infamous end to an international cricket match that was arguably not cricket at all.
Wellie wanging	Competitors are required to hurl a Wellington boot as far as possible
Wife-carrying	One need not carry one's own wife to take part, although you may want to run away as fast as possible afterwards.
Wooden spoon	A Cambridge University tradition adopted by rugby league and rugby union, the Wooden Spoon is awarded to the last-placed team in a competition.
Yukigassen	Competitive snowball fighting.

Animals in sports

Buzkashi	Something like rugby, played on horseback, with a dead goat.
Conger cuddling	The "most fun a person could have with a dead fish".
Egg tapping	One holds a hard-boiled egg and taps the egg of another participant with one's own egg intending to break the other's, without breaking one's own.
Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat	Sydney's other Olympic mascot.
Ferret legging	A stunt in which a live ferret is put down one's trousers. According to Snopes: "Ferret-legging, allegedly a 'sport' ... was reported in an article twenty years ago [in] Outside magazine, was riddled with factual errors ... that apologists attribute to 'poor research on an actual sport.' The Wikipedia article ... has no direct sources except for Katz's article. It has been nominated for deletion twice; both times, the votes were split fifty/fifty and the article was kept. Did Katz write a poor article on an actual sport, or did he make it up?"
Fox tossing	A popular sport in 17th and 18th century Europe that involved tossing foxes and other live animals as high as possible into the air.
Goose pulling	Hang a live goose from a rope, gallop under it on a horse and pull its head off. What could be simpler?
Hamster racing	A uniquely British response to foot and mouth disease.
Kudu dung spitting	Games for conservationists.
Legend of the Octopus	If you're going to an ice hockey game in Detroit, be sure to bring your octopus.
Octopus wrestling	A sport which once attracted crowds of thousands to watch free divers wrestle North Pacific Giant Octopus from the waters of the Puget Sound.
Pig Olympics	An international contest between pigs.
Rabbit show jumping	Watership up, Watership Down. Watership up, Watership Down. Watership...
Robot jockey	Robots designed to ride dromedary camels.
Snail racing	Ready, steady, slow!
Teddy bear toss	A Christmas tradition in minor league ice hockey.
Turkey bowling	So much for "don't play with your food".
Vinkenzetting	Finch-singing in Belgium. More competitive than you might think.
Yak racing	A spectator sport held at traditional festivals in Tibet and Mongolia, among other places.

Athletes

A briefs history of Olympic Flame running.

1956 Olympic Flame hoax	Why the Olympic Flame is pants.
Ali Dia	A guy who tricked his way into English soccer team Southampton F.C. by claiming he had won 12 caps for Senegal, was related to George Weah and had played for Paris St Germain. In 2007, The Times branded him the worst-ever player in top-flight soccer.
Paula Barila Bolopa	A swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, who – much like Eric Moussambani below – competed in the Sydney Olympics. Her time in the 50m freestyle is apparently the longest in Olympic history.
Philip Boit	How many other Kenyan skiers can you name?
Curse of Billy Penn	How a skyscraper in Philadelphia kept the city's sports teams from winning championships for over 20 years.
Curse of the Colonel	Colonel Harland Sanders wreaks revenge from beyond the grave on a Japanese baseball team.
Dock Ellis	Baseball pitcher who, among other things, threw a no-hitter while under influence of LSD, and once tried to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup.
Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards	A British sportsman famous for coming last in the 1988 Winter Olympics ski-jump competition.
Eddie Gaedel	A 65-pound (29 kg) baseball player, 3 ft 7 in (1.09 m) tall. Career on‑base percentage: 1.000.
Dolly Gray impostor	Possibly the least known NFL football player in history.
Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg	A blue blooded Alpine skier, from the frozen wastes of Mexico City.
Carlos Kaiser	A footballer who managed a decade-long career despite lacking pro-level ability and never playing a regulation game.
Jeffrey Maier	The twelve-year-old who helped the Yankees win the pennant.
Mendoza Line	Baseball's standard for underperformance.
Eric Moussambani	A swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who, in the Sydney Olympics, took twice as long as anyone else in the 100m freestyle.
Fuahea Semi	As though being a luger from Tonga wasn't unusual enough, he tricked the world's media and the International Luge Federation for more than two years into believing that he bore the same name as a German lingerie firm.
Sturla Snær Snorrason	An Icelandic alpine skier who (as of October 2018) has competed in 1 Olympic Games and 2 World Championships, but has yet to finish a single race.
Elizabeth Swaney	A Hungarian-American freestyle skier who competed at the halfpipe event at the 2018 Winter Olympics, despite being incapable of performing basic tricks.
Shizo Kanakuri	An Olympic marathon runner who took a 54-year detour.
Taro Tsujimoto	An imaginary ice hockey player drafted because a manager was reportedly "fed up with the slow drafting process via the telephone".

Sport teams and associations

Atlanta Black Crackers	A Negro League baseball team named like many others after a local white baseball team, but in this case the Atlanta Crackers were named after a racial nickname.
East Africa rugby union team	Did this rugby team really select a future dictator to play for them?
Jamaican bobsled team	The real life inspiration for the film Cool Runnings.
London Rippers	A Canadian minor league baseball team that modeled its logo and mascot after Jack the Ripper. Local feminists were not amused, but Rush Limbaugh came to the team's defense.
Mongolia national baseball team	They've only scored 3 runs at the Asian Games. Without ever finishing a game, because of the mercy rule.
Oorang Indians	An all-Native American National Football League team put together as a marketing gimmick to sell Airedale Terriers and known more for its halftime dog shows than for its football play.
Sark national football team	Also known as The Bad Lions, the only national team that failed to ever score a goal.
Steagles Card-Pitt	Sports teams get relocated all the time (especially in the NFL), but what if they had mergers? Wartime conscription forced the Pittsburgh Steelers to do exactly that.
Tropical nations at the Winter Olympics	More than just Jamaican bobsledders.
Windsor Swastikas	A Canadian ice hockey team with a well-known logo.
Vatican City national football team	The squad makes up more than 2 percent of the national population.

Games and strategy contests

The Game	A mind game in which players try not to think about The Game – which means that, by reading this, you just lost The Game.
Blood-vomiting game	"Go" is serious business.
Ghettopoly	An unauthorized version of Monopoly that played on black and other stereotypes. The NAACP was not amused.
Human chess	Enacted by costumed "pieces" on a scaled-up chessboard.
Kancho	A Japanese children's game that simulates anal probing.
Mornington Crescent (game)	A deceptively tricky game of navigating the London Underground—don't be caught in Nidd!
Poole versus HAL 9000	"I'm sorry, Frank, I think you missed it..."
Taikyoku shogi	Japanese 'ultimate chess', with over 400 pieces per side.
The Turk	An 18th century chess computer, which turned out to be a hoax.
USA Rock Paper Scissors League	Organised finger sport.
*War on Terror, The Boardgame*	A boardgame satire of the real "War on Terror" that has proved so popular, it has ended up in national museums, in a TV sitcom, as part of a military training simulation and as a teaching aid in higher education institutions.