Publisher's Synopsis
When we think of the world's great sporting events, we tend to focus on spectacles such as the World Cup, the Olympics, the Derby, the Monaco Grand Prix or the University Boat Race. Yet there is also an alternative world of competition where participants risk life, limb and often dignity for meagre rewards in truly weird sporting pursuits. Step forward the Indonesian sport of sepak bola api, a variation of football in which the barefoot players kick a ball that is on fire; Germany's Mud Olympics, at which competitors play soccer, volleyball and handball while knee-deep in mud; yak racing from Mongolia; Oregon's Pig-N-Ford Races where drivers speed around the track while carrying a live pig under one arm; and Australia's variation of the Boat Race, the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, where, instead of rowing, teams carry their boats along the dry bed of the River Todd.
