We are in Finland, where they have recently held the Wife Carrying World Championships. Yes, that’s correct, there is a world championships for carrying a wife… and it looks like bloody hard work. The contestants have to tackle a 250 metro assault course, all with ‘a little’ extra weight hanging upside-down from the man’s neck.

The obvious question of course is, do they take it seriously? Well, couples attend from countries as far apart as Australia and Russia, so they’re not turning up just for a bit of fun! However, much like the London or New York Marathon, you get a lot of fun runners dressed in themed costumes. This year Darth Vader seemed to do pretty well despite his costume.

A couple of boring facts now… the first competition was held in the Finnish village of Sonkajarvi in 1992 and became such a success that within three years they started holding a World Championship.

This year the event was won, for the fourth time, by a Finnish lawyer, Taisto Miettinen and his wife Kristiina Haapanen, completing the course in an incredible one minute, 22 seconds. The mighty Miettinen explained that his success is down to fitness and preparation, “I started training on the track las autumn, doing one hundred, two hundred and four hundred metres.”

Finland is becoming somewhat of a mecca for unorthodox events, such as sauna sitting, swamp football and mobile phone throwing.

I did enter the sauna sitting competition, but I misheard the title of the competition and ended up being disqualified and very nearly arrested (Ed).