What do you think of this fact?
There are sports with medals, sports with trophies, and then there’s eukonkanto. In Sonkajärvi, a small town in Finland’s Northern Savonia region, people have been racing with a partner on their back since 1992. Its official name: the Wife-Carrying World Championship.
The rules are real, and oddly specific
The official track is 253.5 meters long, with two dry obstacles and one water obstacle about one meter deep. The person being carried can be your own wife or someone else’s, but she must be at least 17 years old and weigh at least 49 kilograms. Too light? Then she wears a backpack with extra weights.
Dropping her isn’t penalized, by the way. You just have to pick her up again right away and keep going. According to Euronews, the only equipment allowed is a helmet for the wife and a belt for the carrier.
How you carry her is up to you. Piggyback and fireman’s lift both work, but VinePair says the most successful teams often use the Estonian carry: she hangs upside down on his back with her legs over his neck and shoulders.
The prize is weighed on a seesaw
Forget cash. The rules promise the winners a drink equal to the wife’s weight, which Euronews and VinePair both describe as beer. According to VinePair, it’s measured on a seesaw: she sits on one end while beer is added to the other until it balances.
And the origin story? It reportedly goes back to Herkko Rosvo-Ronkainen, known as Ronkainen the Robber, in the 1800s. One version says he made his gang recruits carry heavy grain sacks or even live pigs around obstacle courses. Another says his gang carried off women from nearby villages on their backs.
Bonus fact: According to Euronews, Taisto Miettinen and Katja Kovanen from Finland hold the record for most titles, with eight wins between 2009 and 2023.
Somewhere in Finland, someone is training hard for a prize that has to be weighed on a seesaw.