Sporting Event Of The Week (34)

It is some time since I cast my eye over one of my favourite sporting competitions, the Wife-Carrying World Championships. Held annually in Sonkajärvi in Finland, it is run over a 253.5 metre course complete with a mix of land and water-based obstacles, the objective being for the nominated “male” to carry their “wife”, no marriage is necessary, as quickly as possible.

Competitors can choose their own style, whether it be the piggyback, the shoulder-ride, the Fireman’s Carry where ‘wife’ is carried across or over the shoulders, or the Estonian carry, where the ‘wife’ hangs upside-down on the carrier’s back, with their legs over the carrier’s shoulders and the wife’s head in the ‘danger zone,’ next to the carrier’s posterior.  

History was made at this year’s championship held on July 4th and 5th 2025 when for the first time the crown went for the first time to an American couple, who are actually married. Caleb and Justine Roesler completed the course in a new record time of 1 minute and 1.17 seconds, some three and a half seconds faster than the runners up, Vytautas Kirkliauskas and Neringa Kirkliauskiene from Lithuania.

There were over 200 competitors from eighteen countries for the various events, another record, with around 2,000 spectators gathering to watch proceedings. A good time was had by all.