Centrespread Centrespread 15 JANUARY 07-13, 2018 JANUARY 07-13, 2018
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14 centrespread centrespread 15 JANUARY 07-13, 2018 JANUARY 07-13, 2018 NORTH POLE MARATHON If you think running a marathon is hard, how about doing it on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean? Around 50 runners participated in the 2017 edition, held in April at the Barneo Ice Camp. Piotr Suchenia of Poland won the men’s race, completing the 42.2 km distance in 4 hours, 6 minutes and 34 GOING FOR COLD seconds, and France’s Think winter sports and snowboarding, skiing, fi gure skating and ice hockey come Frederique Laurent won the women’s to mind. But there is a whole bunch of unusual sports linked to this time of the ICE CLIMBING race with a time year, ranging from a marathon in the North Pole to shovel racing. ET Magazine One of the most danger- of 6 hours, 21 ous sports on the list, ice minutes and 3 snowboards through some of them: climbing is similar to rock seconds :: G Seetharaman climbing. The International Climbing and Mountain- eering Federation has been pushing for ice climbing to be made an SKIJORING ICE SAILING SNOW KAYAKING offi cial sport in the Winter Pronounced ski-yoring, the sport involves a skier Like skijoring, ice sailing or ice yachting was a form Also called snow boating, snow kayaking had Olympics being pulled usually by a horse with a rider, or even of transport on the Gulf of Riga and on the canals of its fi rst offi cial event in Lienz, Austria, in 2002. a pack of dogs, or a snowmobile, through obstacles the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enthusiasts use a kayak and a paddle to head and jumps. The races cover a distance of 5-20 km. sport began in the US in the 1860s and '70s, and later down a slope. India is also starting to get a Believed to have originated as a mode of transport in spread to Europe, where it declined in popularity af- taste of the sport, with the Winter Games As- Alaska and Scandinavia, the sport is held in Norway, ter World War II, while continuing to have enthusiasts sociation of Jammu & Kashmir organising a SHOVEL RACING YUKIGASSEN US, Canada, Germany and Russia. in North America 10-day workshop in Gulmarg last year The name is quite self-explanatory. Japanese for ‘snow battle’, Yukigassen You sit on the blade of a shove, was started in Mt Showa-Sinzan in with the shaft sticking out between the country’s Sobetsu town in your legs, and you race down a 1989. Two teams of seven snowy slope. Originating in the players each compete to win 1970s in the Rocky Mountains of two of three 3-minute sets. New Mexico in the US, it was part Each team can use up to of the Winter X Games, an extreme 90 snowballs in a set. The sports event in the US, but was team that fi rst captures later removed owing to safety and the opponent’s fl ag or liability concerns. The World Cham- eliminates more play- pionship Shovel Races, organised ers of the rival team by a resort in New Mexico, was put with snowball hits wins on hold between 2005 and 2010 the set. for the same reasons. ICE SWIMMING The sport is held in waters which are 5 degree Celsius or colder, and for a distance of up to 1.6 km. It is held in countries like the Nether- lands, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Scotland, Germany and Poland WOK RACING Similar to shovel racing, but participants sit on round- bottomed Chinese woks instead of shovels and speed down bobsled tracks. There is one-person wok racing and there is four-person wok racing, in which four woks are put on a sled. Speeds can reach 100 km an hour in one-person races, and 120 km in four-per- CURLING son events. Wok racing was started in Winterberg, A sport developed in Scotland over Germany, in 2003 as part of a TV show 400 years ago, curling has been an offi cial Winter Olympics sport since 1998, though the fi rst curling event at the Games was in the 1924 edi- tion. Played by teams of four, curling is a bit like bowling, where the players have to slide a circular stone with a handle towards a target, which looks like a bull’s-eye. Source: Wired, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Encyclopaedia Britannica.