My name is Sydney and I started the strange sports blog because I love them and couldn’t find an organized way to learn about them. There are plenty of sports blogs out there but they often focus only on mainstream sports. There are so many interesting sports out there that just haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve yet.
I should explain why I love strange sports so much. Honestly, I have been surrounded by strange sports all my life. My father was a juggler turned farmer and would juggle whatever he found around the farm; rocks, eggs, and my younger brothers and sisters. My mother herded cats professionally before retiring to have a family and would regale us with stories from her glory days.
My grandparents were also involved in strange sports. My mother’s parents ran a flea circus (which led to my mother’s skill with cats) and my father’s parents were devoted to ostrich racing. A dangerous sport at times because ostriches are quite fast and it can be hard for the jockey to stay on.
When I was a child I couldn’t seem to find the strange sport that defined me. While I watched my brothers and sisters get involved in hurling, cheese rolling, and ax-throwing I just couldn’t find anything that spoke to me. Then one day I was going for a walk in the park and I saw something I couldn’t take my eyes off.
It was a group of people. Men, women, old and young all gliding together as if by magic. When I say gliding maybe that implies they were slow-moving. No, this group was traveling at a clipping pace. I ran up to this group to ask them questions about (what I soon found out was) the weird but wonderful sport of race walking. They were friendly and answered all my questions so the next day I walked with them.
They taught me the two rules of race walking. The first is to always keep one foot on the ground at any given time. The second is to keep your leg completely straight from when it hits the ground until it passes under your hip. As is often the case with the participants of strange sports, I took to it immediately and fell in love with the sport. They called me ‘shimmying Sydney’ due to the exaggerated appearance of my hips as they completed a full rotation.
I received a university scholarship for race-walking and there was talk of me being an Olympic hopeful. Then ‘it’ happened. During a major race, a judge lifted a red card. I felt bad for whichever of my teammates violated a rule but put it out of my head and stayed focus on my goal.
After the race friends and family swarmed around me to congratulate me for winning the race. I was fairly certain this win would catch the eye of the Olympic team and watched for someone to approach me with an offer. Instead, the chief judge approached me. I was informed that I had both feet off the ground for a few milliseconds and was disqualified from the race.
I was crushed. My race walking partners, whom I considered close friends, turned and race walked away. I was later diagnosed with race walking-induced PTSD.
While I can no longer race walk I still appreciate the strange sport and the focus it gave my life for a time. I admire when others find this focus. My goal is to bring these strange, weird, and wonderful sports into the spotlight. Strange sports can make us giggle and we all need a bit more of that in our life, especially these days.