but I think this must be the most boring sport in the world for both,
photograph Hans van Dijk/Wikimedia Commons, the Dutch sport of Paalzitten or Pole Sitting, which sees
competitors literally sitting on wooden poles for dozens of hours, until they
surrender to either numbness or boredom, the sport is not that popular, but a film was made of it, the sport
inspired one of the worst films in Dutch cinematography history, called “Sportsman of
the Century“, it tells the story of an avid Paalzitten practitioner training to
break the fictional record of 250 days sitting on a pole since early childhood, He even fathers a baby while sitting on the pole, and proceeds to lose his love
interest after refusing to cancel his participation in a Paalzitten competition
to help her, He ultimately dies as an old man, sitting on a pole, obviously, in
2006, the film was nominated for two Golden Onions, in the categories Worst
Film and Worst Director,
the videos are in Dutch, but I am sure you will get the idea, as it happens no one knows exactly how Paalzitten came to be, but some
sources claim that it originated in the Dutch province of Friesland, where
locals tried to stave boredom by inventing sports that involved objects used in
daily life, like wooden poles, it’s not clear exactly why someone thought
sitting on a wooden pole just waiting for the other guys to descend first was
an antidote to boredom, but somehow the sport of Paalzitten caught on and
despite almost going extinct at one point, it’s still occasionally practised in
the Netherlands,
Paalzitten
poles are usually placed in water, a few meters from each other, so that if the
competitors either doze off or get numb enough to fall off, thy don’t get
injured, modern poles are usually equipped with a seat and backrest so the
competitors don’t get too uncomfortable, and the rules allow for toilet breaks
every few hours, it wasn’t always this lax though, in the early 1970’s,
participants were not allowed to leave their poles at all. Instead, a huge
canvas was hung around them as they relieved themselves in wooden buckets, I have to say this is an ideal sport for the Olympics, where mediocre, no hope of winning a medal sportsmen in their chosen sport, can put on a skirt and win gold in women's events, in Paalzitten, it makes no difference, all contestants are equal!
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