Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wednesday Weirdness: Turkish oil-wrestling?


Kirkpinar
Originally uploaded by DyslexicMot
So apparently every summer since 1362 there has been a contest called Kirkpinar in Turkey. It's a wrestling competition where the contestants are covered in olive oil! The sport is apparently "known as 'yagli gures' (pronounced "yaw-luh gresh"), and is even "considered by some to be the Turkish national game." It's apparently ridiculously slippery and crazy! I can see how it would probably be pretty entertaining. They have about 700 contestants each year. This week's winner was Mehmet Yeşilyeşil. He won the 648th championship of Kirkpinar. It's cool that they have such a long-standing tradition to continue, but I'm glad that my country has less-weird sports that dominate the national spotlight. Oil wrestling is just weird.

Craziness.


Ya know, it just doesn't seem like it's run-onto-the-field exciting.

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