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Jonathan White

The sporting world is on hiatus because of the world’s battle against Covid-19 and that means finding alternative ways to spend your time.
It turns out that there is more to life than the English Premier League, Uefa Champions League and NBA.
In fact, there is more to sport than elite men’s competition in major sports contested by millionaires employed by billionaires. There is plenty of action at the muddier end of the grassroots.
Take Fierljeppen, the Dutch sport/way to cross a canal that is going viral on social media (even if no-one knows what it is).

When we bring back sport can we start with this one because I have no idea what it is but it’s AMAZING pic.twitter.com/eIWYn63cjF
— Catrin Nye (@CatrinNye) April 7, 2020

There are plenty more niche sports from around the world where Fierljeppen comes from – water-based sports rather than the Netherlands, that is.
Welcome to the water-based sports that are your next video timesuck and perhaps, when we are all allowed outside, your chance at becoming a world champion.


Red Bull Flugtag is evidence that the Austrian energy drink giant’s claim to “give you wings” is nothing more than marketing spiel.
Much like the Bird Man Rally events that most places with a pier seem to have, competitors are asked to fly out as far into the water as they can using whatever winged-device they have cobbled together.
The world record is a rather remarkable 76.6 metres, which is around 7,851 red bull cans laid end to end.


The Giant Pumpkin Regatta is a comment on the size of the squash hollowed out to take to the water in, rather than how many rowers take part.
Such races are found in Canada and the Pacific coast of the US, where they have grown in popularity since the 1990s.
Some of those races are keen to point out that the vessels are composted after use, which assuming there’s soup or pie from making them, makes this one of the greenest sports around.


How can you look past a video that has the words “death diving” in it? There’s even less chance of hitting skip if it’s the world championships.
The sport comes from Norway, and is said to date back to the 1960s where children pulled stunts at an Oslo pool during those long summer days. Nowadays, people pay to watch the worlds.
Divers jump from a 10m board and have to hold an “X” position with their body for as long as possible before curling up to hit the water, which definitely sounds on-brand in a country that is dark for most of winter and listens to a lot of black metal.


Underwater hockey, or “Octopush” to use the name its mum calls it, dates back to the 1950s.
It is what its name suggests, hockey played underwater. Players push a puck around the bottom of a pool with sticks and try to get it into the opposition goal.
Underwater hockey must be doing something right as it was included as a medal sport in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines.


Fierljeppen (“far leaping”) is what pole vault would be if the Olympics was invented in the Netherlands (or by a Japanese game show company).
Competitors run towards a body of water with a pole, they plant their pole in and clamber up it as fast as they can to make sure when gravity wins its own battle with the pole they come down on land and not in the drink.
If you fancy a world record then you will need to clear 21.64 metres of canal.


A certain energy drink company has also taken to sponsoring the age old pastime of humans jumping off cliffs into the water below.
The height of the platform they jump off is between 26-28 metres and they hope they end up in the water below, with judges marking them on the difficulty of how they got there.
Former Red Bull cliff diver Jucelino got a job at royal Caribbean cruises where he would put on diving shows from a mere 17m platform. There are not many sports where you can get into the cruise game.


Underwater cycling is another sport where someone, presumably a scuba diver, has taken a look at an established sport and asked the question no one else cared to.
Would this be better underwater? The jury might be out on that but it certainly can be done and for many that is reason enough. Plus it might help to teach cyclists to swim.
One thing is certain, it is a better sport than velodrome swimming.


Underwater football, like underwater hockey and underwater rugby, is played with snorkels to allow players to stay beneath the pool surface without having to return to breathe.
One of the teams of 13 players needs to get the weighted ball to the opposition end of the pool while the other team tries to stop them.
Interestingly, American football’s underwater equivalent was actually invented in Canada so who said they never gave the world anything.


Bog snorkelling sounds like some manner of twisted military punishment but the reality is much different.
OK, it is not that much different, unless you consider not swimming – you are not allowed to use traditional swimming strokes – under the surface of a bog for 110m to be fun.
Plenty do and they flock to Wales for the annual world championships, where there is now a Bog Snorkelling Triathlon.


As if created by Mick Dundee in the middle of an AFL game at a beachside barbecue, the Beer Can Regatta is Australia’s most Australian contribution to the global niche sport scene.
Racers make an oceangoing craft out of cans of beer and then put it to the test by sailing out from Darwin and trying to get back in a) before sinking and b) before anyone else.
You call that a beer can boat? No, that’s a beer can boat.


Whatever Big Beer can push, Big Milk is never far behind. The Milk Carton Regatta is pretty much the same as its beer equivalent but with the cans swapped for cartons.
The event was popular in Perth until it disappeared in the early 2000s but it returned this year – or at least it was planned to until Covid-19 came for that too. Strewth.


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Indonesia's women's underwater hockey team train for the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. Photo: AFP

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Sport

Other Sport


Underwater hockey has made it to the Southeast Asian Games so there’s hope for submerged football and rugby equivalents
Canal leaping videos have gone viral on social media as people look for alternative sports in lockdown



Canal leaping videos have gone viral on social media as people look for alternative sports in lockdown, while underwater hockey has made it to the Southeast Asian Games.


Canal leaping, death diving and bog snorkelling: the world’s weirdest water sports

Underwater hockey has made it to the Southeast Asian Games so there’s hope for submerged football and rugby equivalents Canal leaping videos have gone viral on social media as people look for alternative sports in lockdown

Underwater hockey has made it to the Southeast Asian Games so there’s hope for submerged football and rugby equivalents

Canal leaping videos have gone viral on social media as people look for alternative sports in lockdown