"Viva la revolucion!"

On Sunday, Chinese sports fans from around the country flocked to Shaoyang City for what I assume is the country’s national pastime – Bee-bearding. Two men registered for the event. Two. Out of the infinity-plus-a-billion population of China, only two people had the gāowáns to stand around and let thousands of bees hang out on their skin. I totally would have flown to China and competed but I also had my pushups-while-fighting-sharks competition training this weekend, so it was a scheduling conflict.

The competitors were 42-year old Wang Dalin and 20-year old Lc Kongjiang, making this a true battle of the ages. It’s like Nolan Ryan pitching against Tim Lincecum, except if they were Chinese and covered in bees. Each competitor was fitted with a type of necklace that held a queen bee in a tiny cage, which in turn attracted all of the bees to the men. They had one hour to attract as many bees as possible as they stood on a scale, which measured their weight before and after. I’m not fully versed on the rules, but I assume there is a clause for soiled drawers.

In the end, the elder bee-beard proved champion, as he accumulated 26 kilograms of live bees, while Kongjiang was only able not scream like a woman while 22.9 kg of bees tap danced on his flesh. That means that the world record of American Mark Biancaniello (350,000 bees!) is still safe. So at least we didn’t lose to all of Asia this weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »

On June 25 and 26, teams from across Europe will travel to Gravesend, Kent (England) and the Vigo Rugby Club to participate in the fifth-consecutive Bike Polo European Cup. That’s right – Bike Polo. No horses, just bikes. Guys on bikes with mallets hitting a ball into a net. Well, it’s certainly better than Quidditch.

Gareth Collins, club secretary, said: “Over the four years we have been in the cup we have got better and better. Getting the draw against Sanvic (who won last year’s competition) was a real bonus. The French have a league and play every two weeks so to get to theirnlevel is really something.” (Via The Gravesend Reporter)

And while I don’t know what theirnlevel means, you can put your worries to rest – Yes, Americans have discovered bike polo. In fact, there’s a World Championship for bike polo, too, and the reigning champions just so happen to be from these here great United States. The Beaver Boys from Milwaukee are the defending World Hardcourt Bike Polo Champions, and will look to retain their title later this summer. Highlights after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve long been a fan of pole dancing, which makes it so nice to see that the athletes that do it are finally being recognized in competitions. Violet Blue’s “Open Source Sex” column at the San Francisco Chronicle addresses the growing trend of pole dancing as sport, noting nationwide competitions in Australia (giggety), Argentina (Bang!), and Belgium (seen above — that’s Anouch Proost, Belgium’s Miss Pole Dance 2008).

Wow, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, Earth would be a much happier place if there were more floor-to-ceiling poles and women who knew how to use them for erotic dance. On the other hand, I don’t like this whole thing where there’s no “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and they’ve got leotards instead of g-strings and mesh shirts. And in another hand, HEY! How’d my penis get here?

[CO-ED Mag via SbB]

Daily Mail has an exposé — complete with gruesome photos, natch — of a horse fighting tournament in the Philippines in which stallions used their annoying teeth to bite each other and their stupid hooves to brutally kick each other. 

Though horses do not normally fight one another, these stallions had been whipped into a fighting frenzy by the presence of a young mare who was "in season" and had been staked to the ground in the middle of the muddy arena. Overwhelmed by desire, the stallions attacked each other in a bid to defeat their sexual rivals…

The tournament was equally traumatic for the mare used as "bait" for the stallions. Not only was she repeatedly hit by stray blows from the duelling horses, but the poor creature was also obliged to mate with the victorious stallions from each "bout", meaning that she was mounted as many as 30 times during one tournament which can last up to six hours…

Veterinary care is too expensive for most owners to bother with, so wounded horses are often killed for their meat and the choicest cuts barbecued and sold to the crowd.

See, shit like this happens in places like the Philippines.  Those people are more animal than human.  Which is why I pay top price for them when I release them onto my private island.  They make excellent prey.  Very cunning, and vicious when wounded or cornered.  You generally need a pistol with big-time stopping power to finish the job, like a .45 or a Desert Eagle.

In conclusion, horse fighting is barbaric. 

[Fan IQ] 

Well, if any country was going to make soccer entertaining by turning it into a perversely cruel trick on the participants, it was gonna be Japan.  And this video is apparently from over twenty years ago.  God only knows what wrinkles the Japanese have added by now.  Surely there are in-ground tanks of piranha laid into the field and 14-year-old schoolgirl cheerleaders getting violated on the sidelines.  In other words, it's probably even better.

(Thanks to whichever reader sent this in this weekend, plus whichever blog on my RSS feed had it.  I'd give the proper credit, but I'm generally too drunk to remember anything on weekends.)

FOXNews has the hard-hitting report:

The packed JET night club in the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Tuesday hosted 25 bikini-clad contestants who showed that it takes not only beauty but incredible strength to be a winner… The winner, who goes by the name Anika, won the top prize of $10,000.

$10,000?  That's it?  That will hardly cover a semester of tuition for Anika!  A "semester of tuition," of course, is slang for five kilos of coke.  It's true.  I read it in Urban Dictionary.

Oh, and what's this?  A certain intrepid sports blog editor found a 13-page gallery of the evening's festivities hard-fought sporting events.

11/26 UPDATE: Actually, go with this gallery instead.