For those of you bored of the World Cup at this stage, then here’s the chance to follow and support an Irish Team competing on the World Stage. The World Wife Carrying Championships that is!!
Teams from around the world are travelling to Finland next week to represent their countries in one of the most unusual competitions in the land, known as Wife Carrying. A small town in Finland, called Sonkajärvi is the home of the competition and this will be its 15th year.
After scooping 3rd place in the Relay Event and “Most Entertaining Couple” in the main race last year, Ciara Crossan and James Kennedy from Cork are heading back to Finland to defend their titles.
Ciara Crossan and James Kennedy winning "Most Entertaining Couple" in the 2009 Wife Carrying World Championships with this hilarious swan dive into the water obstacle.
“We had such great fun in Finland last year at the Wife Carrying World Championships, we just had to go back this year” said the lovely Ciara, founder of WeddingDates.ie, a site that allows couples to search for Irish wedding venues and suppliers based on their preferred wedding date.
This year, the couple are making the trip to Finland bigger and better, travelling overland in a campervan which has been given to them by Irish campervan rental company Celtic Campervans. “We are crossing 7 countries in 7 days, to get to Finland in time for the Wife Carrying”, Ciara said. “Our plan is to film the journey so the Irish public can follow the adventure and really get behind the Irish Wife Carriers.”
Apart from Finland and Ireland, teams from 10 other countries will be participating in the world championships including USA, Australia, France, Germany, Russia and Estonia.
“Ireland have missed out on the World Cup in South Africa, but we want to give the Irish public something to cheer about!” said James Kennedy who is in training to make sure he crosses the ‘Finnish Line’ (yup, I said it) in good time while carrying Ciara.
Rowing in to sponsor the Wife Carrying Team are the Carlton Hotel group, who are running a special offer for anyone who books into any of the 10 hotels nationwide, their wife/girlfriend/partner goes free if they carry them over the threshold.
Official Rules of Wife Carrying
- The length of the official track is 253.5 meters, and the surface of the track is partially sand, partially grass and partially gravel.
- The track has two dry obstacles and a water obstacle, about one meter deep.
- The wife to be carried may be your own, the neighbour’s or you may have found her farther afield; she must, however, be over 17 years of age.
- The minimum weight of the wife to be carried is 49 kilos. If it is less than 49 kilos, the wife will be burdened with such a heavy rucksack that the total weight to be carried is 49 kilos.
- All the participants must have fun.
- If a contestant drops his wife, he has to relift her on to his back or in his arms and continue carrying.
The Irish Wife Carrying Team will be filming their journey across Europe to Finland and uploading video blogs daily, which will feature on Culch.ie and on weddingdates.ie/wifecarrying. WeddingDates will be live tweeting the event [@WeddingDates] with the hashtag #wifecarrying
www.YouTube.com/WeddingDates
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www.Twitter.com/WeddingDates
For a flavour of what to expect when the Irish hit Finland, check out Ciara’s video from last year’s event:
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