Lithuanian Couple Wins World Championship

The married couple of Vytautas Kirkliauskas and Neringa Kirkliauskiene from Lithuania are world champions.

Never heard of them?

What are they the champions of?

This past summer, this couple won the wife-carrying world championship with a time of 63.5 seconds.

Yes, you read that right.  WIFE carrying.

This sport is a contest in which male competitors race while each carrying a female partner.  The male has to carry his female companion through a special obstacle track in the fastest time.  The sport was first introduced in Sonkajarvi, Finland in 1992.

The origin of this event is based on 19th-century Finnish legend "Ronkainen the Robber" who had high qualifications for the men he accepted into his band. To prove their worth, men had to compete through a difficult course with a heavy sack (or woman grabbed from neighboring villages) on their back.

There are several types of carrying such as the classic piggyback style, the fireman's carry or Estonian-style where the wife is upside-down on her male partner's back with her legs over the neck and shoulders.

The rules for the competition:

• The most important rule is to have fun when carrying a wife
• The length of the official track is 253.5 metres (832 ft).
• The track has two dry obstacles and a water obstacle about one metre deep.
• The wife to be carried may be your own, or the neighbour's, or you may have found her further afield; the wife must, however, be over 17 years of age.
• The wife is a gender free term that is used over the carried person (Gender rule changed in February 2023)
• The minimum weight of the wife to be carried is 49 kilograms (108 lb). If she weighs less than 49 kg, she will be burdened with a rucksack containing additional weight to bring the total load to be carried up to 49 kg.
• All participants must enjoy themselves.
• The only equipment allowed is a belt worn by the carrier and a helmet worn by the carried.
• The contestants run the race two pairs at a time, so each heat is a contest in itself.
• Each contestant takes care of his/her safety and, if deemed necessary, insurance.
• The contestants have to pay attention to the instructions given by the organizers of the competition.
• There is only one category in the World Championships, and the winner is the couple who completes the course in the shortest time.
• Also, the most entertaining couple, the best costume, and the strongest carrier will be awarded a special prize.

The Wife Carrying World Championship is held in Finland since 1992.  The prize is the wife's weight in beer.

The North American Wife Carrying Championships takes place every year since 1999 in October at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Maine.