Strangest ever televised sports

[ad hoc]

You're probably talking about biathlon, but it's much better to watch than you're making it sound. I think it's great, though as with all cross country skiing events I prefer the mass start version. The lengths of the cross country skiing bits vary from event to event, but there are usually 4 shooting stops, two of which are done lying down and 2 of which standing up (usually in that order, so that the 4th and last shooting challenge is done standing up when they're absolutely knackered.

Some versions have you doing an extra loop of skiing (lasting about 30 seconds) for every target missed and others have the need for reloading before ensuring you hit all 4 targets.

It;s my favourite televised winter sport I think

[Snake Plissken]

Biathlon and cross country skiing is incredibly watchable, in the same way that you can invest a few hours in a Tour de France or a good Test Match.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Yep. I'll happily watch biathlon / cross-country skiing.

[WOM]

Put me down for anything happening quickly downhill; ski-cross, board-cross, those Red Bull downhill mountain bike races.

[Hot Pepsi]

Put me down for anything happening quickly downhill; ski-cross, board-cross, those Red Bull downhill mountain bike races.

Me too.

A kid from around here won the junior championships in Crashed Ice. They make a downhill ice track and then guys in hockey skates and pads race to the bottom four at a time.


As much as I hate guns, biathlon is better than regular nordic skiing because it's less predictable. Somebody can have a big lead and then miss a shot and then the race gets tight again. It's sort of like a yellow flag in motorsports in that respect, but way less dangerous.

There's also an archery version of biathlon. I'm not sure why that's not in the Olympics. It seems like they'd want to have more events and use the same facilities more often. Or maybe the nordic courses already have all the events they can cram into two weeks.

Really anything that requires concentration and skill could be coupled with an endurance race to create the same sort of thing.

[sw2borshch]

Cumbrian correspondents may be able to elaborate, yesteryear we often used to get snippets of the World Gurning Championships on Look North, but I have, alas and alack, no recollections of highlights packages or live coverage.

[sw2borshch]

Look where you leap, innit, apparently used to be on Trans World Sports.
https://youtu.be/WWG4fNt3vto

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Biathlon they really ought to be allowed to shoot each other, like the start of a Roger Moore Bond movie.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Cumbrian correspondents may be able to elaborate, yesteryear we often used to get snippets of the World Gurning Championships on Look North, but I have, alas and alack, no recollections of highlights packages or live coverage.

Indeed, it is the highlight of the annual Egremont Crab Fair. Not to be confused with the World's Biggest Liar competition in (relatively) nearby Santon Bridge.

[S. aureus]

Do they not tell kids in Cumbria that their faces will stick like that if the wind changes? My mom told us that all the time, probably put paid to any chances I had of being a gurning champion.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Do they not tell kids in Cumbria that their faces will stick like that if the wind changes? My mom told us that all the time, probably put paid to any chances I had of being a gurning champion.

My mother certainly did, and given that a competitor won the women's "crown" 27 times, perhaps it is true and they just made the most of their revised features.

[Southport Zeb]

Welsh baseball? Sounds more like rounders, I should think.

I mentioned British, or Welsh, Baseball on a thread about dying sports a year or two back. It's it's own thing, distinct from both rounders and [American] baseball. It used to be fairly popular in South Wales and Liverpool, with annual internationals drawing five figure crowds on occasion. Participation has massively declined in recent years, with the England-Wales match ending in 2015 as there were not enough English players to make up a team. The Welsh League was apparently abandoned a couple of years after.

[Snake Plissken]

Indeed, it is the highlight of the annual Egremont Crab Fair. Not to be confused with the World's Biggest Liar competition in (relatively) nearby Santon Bridge.

If BB&F hasn’t been there and produced a photo report, I demand a stewards inquiry as to why the hell not.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

If BB&F hasn’t been there and produced a photo report, I demand a stewards inquiry as to why the hell not.

Given there is also a miniature gauge railway nearby, and any amount of decent ale houses in the area, I'd be stunned if this hasn't been cleared.

[Third rate Leszno]

When I was an apprentice at Sellafield, my boss won the Biggest Liar competition more than once.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

When I was an apprentice at Sellafield, my boss won the Biggest Liar competition more than once.

Oh no he didn't, etc.

[jefe]

Ski ballet

[fatbear]

I think Channel Four showed live chess when Nigel Short played Gary Kasparov in the 1993 World Championship - not "strange", per se, but it hardly lends itself to the medium of television.

BBC's Master Game was good in that it included the players thoughts ( recorded afterwards ! ) as to thinking behind the moves they had made. It was parodied by Smith & Jones ( i think ) with one player listening to the comments and playing accordingly !

[fatbear]

Surprised no-one has mentioned synchronised swimming yet.........especially solo synchronised swimming !

[Jumbo McGinnis]

I was in a pub in Widnes a couple of years ago at 11pm(ish) and there was a bizarre sport on that had me and three others absolutely transfixed by it. Turns out it was Khabbadi, I can’t remember what channel it was on but watching that whilst Karaoke went on in the background was not how I expected to spend a Friday night.

[Jumbo McGinnis]

Trouble, in the early 00’s, which used to show American TV shows like Fresh Prince of Bel Air showed Slamball. It was basketball that also involved trampolines. Wikipedia says it only lasted for a couple of years. I’m not surprised.