Sports from Hell - My Search for the World's Most Outrageous Competition

Zusatztext "Reilly could write about lawn bowling and make it funny! informative! and entertaining."-- Los Angeles Times “[Reilly] knows and delivers a good story when he sees it . . . readers can’t help but be touched by the sheer ingenuity of many of these games and the sheer courage of many of the participants.”-- Booklist Informationen zum Autor Rick Reilly has been voted National Sportswriter of the Year eleven times. Formerly a senior writer for Sports Illustrated , he now is a front-page columnist for ESPN.com and an essayist for ESPN SportsCenter, as well as ESPN's and ABC's golf coverage. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including Who's Your Caddy? Klappentext Bestselling author and ESPN star! Rick Reilly delivers a hilarious! unabashedly fun! and at times! skin-searing tour through some of the world's most amazing and outrageous sports From the physically and mentally taxing sport of chess boxing to the psychological battlefield that is the rock-paper-scissors championship! to the underground world of illegal jart throwing! Rick Reilly subjected himself to both bodily danger and abject humiliation (or! in the case of ferret legging! both) in order to personally find the world's strangest sporting event. Chronicling his adventures as only he can! Rick enters a world of bizarre characters! fierce competition! and exotic locals--with stops in Australia! New Zealand! Finland! Denmark! England! and even a maximum security prison at Angola! Louisiana--and the result is a laugh-out-loud book perfect for any sport's fan. Chapter 1 1 World Sauna Championships OK, kids, today's activity is to go down to your local Pizza Hut, have them set the oven for 261 degrees, and insert your entire body into it. The tips of your ears start to ignite. The backs of your arms scream. Your throat feels like somebody stuck a tiki torch down it. Your lips are bitten by large, unseen raccoons. You vow to move to Alaska. And you haven't even hit thirty seconds. Now do it for ten minutes or more and you have an idea of what it's like to compete in quite possibly the world's dumbest sport-the World Sauna Championships. I know. I entered. These are the 9th Annual World Sauna Championships in Heinola, Finland, a Heidi-esque little lake-riddled town 140 kilometers north of Helsinki. I've covered a lot of thrilling athletic endeavors, but never men sitting in small rooms and sweating. What other championships does the world have? Napping? Barcalounging? Standing in Front of the Fridge? Announcer: And now Struhdler leans in for the leftover tuna-nope! No! He switches to the fudge! As we drove up, my mind reeled at what kind of things competitors in the World Sauna Championships say to sportswriters afterward in the locker room. "I just got hot. What can I say?" I went over the rules. Simple. Competing in "six-person heats"-said without irony-the field of eighty-four men (including me) and eighteen women battle to see whose skin can boil last. You may wear only bathing suits that go eight inches down the leg and absolutely nothing else. (Women can wear one-piece bathing suits.) You can wipe sweat from your face, but not your body. You cannot cover your ears. You may not lean over too far. You get one warning, then you're out. Ambulances will be standing by. Good luck! I wondered if sauna sitting has trash-talking like other sports. For instance, what if I came into my heat on the first day with a lit Winston and a cup of coffee? Maybe look at the other five guys and go, "Hey, when are they gonna turn this bitch on?" Start knocking on the window and yelling, "Let's get some heat in here! You want us to catch our deaths?" Maybe look at the crotch of the guy next to me and go, "That's weird. I thought COLD caused shrinkage." Or maybe wait outside the sauna ...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Rick Reilly
• Editore: Anchor Books USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 31.05.2011
• EAN: 9780767919708
• ISBN: 978-0-7679-1970-8
• Pagine: 224
• Dimensioni: 135 mm x 202 mm x 15 mm
• Categorie: Guide e manuali > Sport > Tematiche generali, enciclopedie, manuali, annuari, storia; Narrativa > Fumetti, cartoni, humour, satira