A lot of amazing things can happen during a Finnish summer
Summer in Finland is a time when all sorts of festivals take place, including weird and wonderful events that are found nowhere else in the world. World championships for sitting in the sauna, carrying wives, playing swamp soccer and playing the air guitar are organised only in Finland in summer!
Wife Carrying
The village of Sonkajärvi in the Savo region of eastern Finland has played host to the Wife Carrying World Championships since 1992. The event began as a village fair and has developed into a festival lasting several days, with activities as varied as open-air ballroom dancing and karaoke being organised alongside the main programme. Entrants from numerous countries are entering the championships, including from countries as far away as Kenya.
Swamp Soccer
The Swamp Soccer World Championships will be held in Hyrynsalmi in northern Finland on 17-19 July. The event is not dazzlingly fast-moving, but wading through the swamp to play this game requires a high level of physical fitness and a quick mind. You also need to take enough of clothes with you, as in this sport you need a fresh set every day.
Mobile phone throwing
Finland is known around the world for its mobile phones and javelin-throwers. When you put these two together, you get phone throwing, an event for which the world championships have been contested in Savonlinna since 2000. Special phones for throwing have been designed for the sport, and these are hurled into the air by competitors in four categories. Finn Mikko Lampi’s world record throw from 2005 stands at a respectable 94.97 metres!
Sauna sitting
As one of the mainstays of Finnish culture, the sauna is also a competitive sport and this summer will see the title of most thick-skinned sauna-goer contested in Heinola. The rules of this game are simple – the last person left in the sauna is the winner. The sauna temperature for the competition is 110°C, so a first-timer would do well to acclimatise to the sauna at slightly lower temperatures.
Air Guitar playing
The Air Guitar World Championships, organised in Oulu since 1996, have given thousands of young people five minutes of rock-and-roll fame. What at first sounded like a ridiculous idea has over the years grown into an event with an international following, to which rock devotees from as far afield as Japan and New Zealand flock to play the imaginary guitar.
More information
Wife Carrying World Championships
Swamp Soccer World Championships
Sauna World Championships
Air Guitar World Championships
Mobile phone Throwing World Championships
This article has been published on the websites of the Finnish Embassies in Brussels 2008 and in Haag 2009