You heard it here first folks… sooner or later, some genius is going to launch a sporting event the likes of which the world has never seen. And possibly doesn’t want to see again. Depending on your tastes.

Either way, as part of New Matilda’s ongoing efforts to bring you the Best and the Worst the Internet Has To Offer, we’ve come across three ‘new and emerging’ sports which could package neatly together for the sort of event that a nation like, say, America, could really use right now. Something to distract everyone from their descent into chaos, violence and Far Right lunacy.

It might even form an ‘Alternative Olympics’, where drug cheating is a pointless exercise, and where we all celebrate the gentler aspects of the human spirit. And a little delusion.

 

Fabulous Soccer

Introducing Discofoot, a relatively new sport out of Europe which looks like what might happen if a soccer match broke out at an asylum, which was housing the victims of a severe bout of mental illness that had swept through a dance company.

Only much camper. And more fabulous, obviously.

The point of Discofoot – indeed the most important rule – is to stay in motion, dancing, throughout the match, while you try and put a soccer ball in a net. Even the coaches on the sidelines have to dance.

 

Innocent enough, but still disturbing

Then there’s Hobby Horsing, which has recently caught on in Europe. As the name implies, it involves hobby horses – the things kids from a previous century used to ride around in the backyard, owing to a lack of real ponies.

But the sport of Hobby Horsing takes that casual backyard pursuit to the next level, and then some, with (mostly) young girls dressing in ‘horsie outfits’ (jodhpurs etc) and prancing around a ring, like they were performing dressage… except no horse is involved.

There’s a showjumping aspect as well, which is about as athletic as you think it is, making Hobby Horsing possibly, the weirdest sport the in world. It’s so weird that at first blush, it genuinely looks like a piss-take. But it’s not – this video is from a recent competition in Finland, which attracted more than 400 competitors.

 

Refined and classy… ish

And finally, there’s the sport of freestyle canoeing, which first rose to prominence more than a decade ago, when American comedy Portlandia took the piss out of it.

But, like Hobby Horsing, it is a real thing. Indeed, it’s hard to tell the difference between Portlandia’s send up, and the real deal.

As for a description of the action…? It’s probably best just to watch. Maybe with a glass of something. Or six. Below is a performance from Marc Ornstein (the bad boy of Freestyle Canoeing) at the 2007 Mid-West Freestyle Canoe Championships in the US. Unusually, the comments at the bottom of the video are worth diving into (a nice change).

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