NEWRY (AP) – An annual event involving dirt and cash once again drew dozens of eager competitors to a ski resort in Maine last Saturday.
More than 30 couples competed in the North American Wife Carrying Championship, a 254-metre race during which contestants splash through water, leap over logs and trudge through mud – all while carrying their partner like a sack of potatoes.
The sport’s origin story isn’t exactly politically correct. It’s based on a 19th Century Finnish legend involving a man known as “Ronkainen the Robber,” whose gang was known to pillage villages and carry away the women, according to one of the explanations included on the website wife-carrying.org.
Traditionally, the Finnish event featured male competitors carrying a woman. On Saturday, competing couples didn’t have to be married, nor did they have to be a man and a woman.
One contestant – the carrier – was dressed as Mr Incredible, while his “wife” was dressed entirely in pink. They and others were cheered on heartily by crowds on both sides of the course at Sunday River ski resort.
