The unusual pairing of elements from traditional games creates popular new pastimes and puts a fresh spin on sport!
In Germany youths have put a fresh spin on sidewalk athletics, replacing skateboards with chairs in a new sport known as SportHocking.
Sporthocking is a sequence showdown not unlike dance-offs where participants perform athletic moves including juggling, kicking, throwing, spinning, and sliding using a rubber lined plastic stool, before sitting to signify their manoeuvre is complete.
According to an article in the DailyMail, Germans invented the Sporthock in 2007, but the sports industry trade show ispo nominated it as one of the best new products for this year.
Watch the video and you decide!
In Switzerland the opportunity to Waterski is not lost on frozen lakes and snow covered paddocks but reborn as Skijoring replacing boat power with a horsepower participants can glide the icy surface at breakneck speeds.
Skijoring originated in Scandinavia, originally as a mode of winter transportation. Today it is a recreational sport, often done with horses sometimes dogs providing the pull. In equestrian skijoring, the human wears skis and holds tug lines attached to the horse’s harness.
Skijoring races are serious business in parts of Europe, where horses wearing special winter shoes gallop around a snowy track, pulling their drivers at remarkable speeds. In North America a popular variation is to have a rider on the horse while the skijorer holds a line attached to the saddle horn. With this western twist on the Scandinavian sport, skijorers compete behind galloping horses, steering themselves over sizeable jumps.
Here is a video with the Skinny on Skijoring.
Finally we have Ireland’s take on polo, this time players ride bicycles as opposed to the traditional horseback version.
Bicycle Polo is a team sport, invented in County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1891 by retired cyclist, Richard J. Mecredy. Similar in every aspect to the original sport only performed on bicycles. The hardcourt game has seen a sharp spike in interest as of 2007 and new teams are sprouting up across the world.
This video displays the skill, camaraderie and popularity of the sport.
