Finnish couple win wife carrying championship
14th annual Wife Carrying Championship winners get wife's weight in beer after husband hauls spouse across obstacle course in 48 seconds
A Finnish couple has earned cash, beer and bragging rights after taking out the 14th annual North American Wife Carrying Championship at Maine's Sunday River ski resort, the Daily Mail reported.
Five-time world champion Taisto Miettinen and Reetta Sairanen won Saturday's contest, completing the 278-yard obstacle course in just over 48 seconds.
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Powering over hurdles, ducking sand traps and pushing through a water hole alongside 50 other competitive couples, the dominant duo took home Sairanen's weight (89 pounds) in beer and five times her weight in cash ($445).
On the way to victory - the Miettinens
Now they're set to compete in the World Wife Carrying Championship in Finland next year, according to Sun Journal.
Miettinen has won the world championship five times, but with a different teammate.
Asked the secret to wife carrying, Miettinen said, "You must have power, you must be fast and you must have sustained strength...The woman’s weight, it is important."
South Paris' Jesse Wall and Christine Arsenault secured a place in the top three after setting the pace early in the race.
Asked how they got into the sport, Wall told the Daily Mail, "I have a very little wife who said to me, 'We’ve got to go try this, it will be a lot of fun.'"
The tough participants hailed from the US, Europe and South Korea. The Korean teams were being filmed for an upcoming television show.
The most popular method of carrying the woman, reportedly used by all winners to date, is called the "Estonian" method.
Wrapping the women's legs around the man's head and hanging upside-down behind them, Estonian-style apparently, is considered more comfortable than the classic piggyback or '"fireman" (over the shoulder).
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