Scan Magazine

By Ben Kersley

Ben Kersley looks at how Finland gets the gold medal for sporting creativity.

The Finnish Football Association boasts a consistency in form that few international sides can match. They have consistently failed, over their entire 102-year history, to qualify for either the World Cup or the European Championships.

In 1952, the Finns hosted the Olympics and in what should have been their sporting zenith they even managed to come behind Hungary in the medals table. In ice hockey, the quintessential Nordic sport, Finland usually goes home with silver to Sweden’s gold. Other than the odd bit of ski jumping and some middle distance running, no major sport has ever been troubled by Finnish domination.

Yet Finland’s trophy cabinet is far from empty. How? By inventing a wealth of new world championships and making up the rules as they go along.

There are sports for everyone. From Neppis, which is toy car racing in sandpits for grown ups, to The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships. There’s Swamp Football, a slow and clumsy version of the beautiful game played knee deep in mud. Not unlike watching a proper game of Finnish footie.

The best participant sports are those where you don’t need expensive clothes to play, such as the Nakukymppi, a running race as nature intended (shoes and socks are optional). It takes place around midsummer, which has less to do with tradition and more to do with the fact that mosquito numbers have not yet reached their peak. Or there’s the World Sauna Championships with contestants aiming to stay in a sauna as long as possible without actually cooking. The winner celebrates by throwing his sweaty par-boiled body into a crowd of adoring fans.

The jewel in the Finnish sporting crown is also the thorn in their side: much as England regrets ever teaching cricket and rugby to the Australians, the Finns must rue day they invited the Estonians to take part in the World Wife Carrying Championship. In the twelve year history of the competition, Finland has only won twice. Other than that Estonia, a nation even worse at football than Finland, has carried home the silverware (presumably putting the wife down first) every time.

Ben Kersley is a writer and performer based in Linköping, Sweden. He is also Sweden’s only Swinglish stand up comedian. www.speakup.se