Ready-set-carry!

Finally it is here, first day of wife carrying world championship. The best weekend of summer!

In Africa there is a proverb ”it takes a village to raise a child” and it fits perfectly on this event. Whole municipality has participated on some level. Organizations, entrepreneurs and volunteers has put hours and hours of their time, to make this event possible.

And now everything is ready to rumble! Barries and waterhazards are waiting you! You can also come here to enjoy the atmosphere, if you don’t want to sing karaoke, throw tonkkumi or carry anybody.

Weather is traditional Finnish weather, so all you need to take with you is bikinis or speedos, sun lotion, insect repellent, umbrella, winter coat and mittens.

Welcome everybody to have a great time in Sonkajärvi!

What is TonkKumi?

 

TonkKumi is sport that suit everybody between age of 10 to 100.  Target is churn (40liters) , which is being trying to hit with teat rubbers. 

 

Throwing distance is 4 meters.  You throw eight (8) teat rubber on two different series. Then referee will count, how many rubbers you manages to get in the churn. Sounds easy, but it is not. 

 

 TonkKumi doesn’t require good condition or big muscles. Only good hand-eye coordination and happy attitude. (You can also be grumpy, if you don’t want to be happy)

There will be championship contest for individuals and 3 person teams. After two qualifying rounds, 16 best contestants go to finals. Then will 8 pairs of finalists throw only one serie of 8 rubbers and winner continue on.  At the end, there will be only two left and one of them will be best of the world. (You can imagine the sound on of ”we are the champions”)  

Are you ready to be the champion of the world? 

What can Sonkajärvi offer.

Sonkajärvi is a small municipality in northern Savo. But it is also a original host of wife carrying world championship contest, which is a world wide sport. When you come to Sonkajärvi, you see the beauty of nature, smiling face on finnish people and hopefully, a warm and sunny weekend.  

 

Sonkajärvi central is no metropolis, where you can find Starbucks or Burger King, but you have chance to get coffee and crepes, which are made on open fire. 

But Sonkajärvi fulfill all basic needs. Pharmacy, grocery, restaurants, accommodation services, auto repair shops, and ATM.  I’m sure that someone can arrange,  if you need something special need, just ask. People are friendly. Everyone on municipality are on festive mood and you can easily make a new friends. And if someone can not help you or you don’t find same language, they will find someone, who can help you.  

 

Finland is a land of a thousand lakes and beautiful nature. In Sonkajärvi, we have great lakes, that you can swim. 

There is also many gorgeous nature trails, for example Volokinpolku, which it 30km long. 

 

And I strongly recommend to visit on kotaharju's wooden lookout-tower, which offer breathtaking views on northern-Savo. 

So boldly ask, if you wan’t experience something new. Finnish people are known to be a little peculiar. We may not come to sit next to you on bus, but we are eager to invite you to our sauna (steam room) and sitting next to you bare butt. And if you lucky, we will made you a vasta or vihta (bath whisk ), that are traditionally made of birch branches .  

Go and visit website www.sonkajarvi.fi/In-English and find some more information and find more attractions, like Jyrkkä or bottlemuseum.






pics (https://eukonkanto.fi/kuvia/ and www.sonkajarvi.fi)

Hello and welcome! 

My name is Kimmo and I will help you to get familiar with the great sport of wife carrying. In the process, you will also get a lot of useful knowledge of municipality of Sonkajärvi and the competition event. 



This blog also offers some, not so vital, information about Finnish culture, food, traditions and of course, introduce to quite new team sport, called Tonkkumi. It’s hard to translate directly, but I try anyway. Churnrubber is compined word on churn and teat rubbers. If you want to be the best of the world, you need some accuracy and eye-to-hand-coordination. Also you need to come and participate on world championship contest of Tonkkumi, which been held on that same day.  There is also karaoke contest and country fair on the venue.

But on my first blog, I will tell you something about wife carrying and what to expect. The event of wife carrying World championship, has been held since year 1992. The sport it self, is based on a story of Herkko Ronkainen, who was kind-hearted man, that lived in forrest of Kainuu in the mid 1800s. 

He was shoemaker, who become a robber and helped poor families. His wife was not pleased with choices that her husband did and nag him a lot. Eventually legend was born, when Herkko, a very large man, grab his wife on his shoulders and carry her in the depth of the forrest and left her there. Wife eventually find back home and never saw his husband again. Herkko Ronkainen gather group of men around him, whom helped him on his robberys. If someone wanted to join his group, aspirant had to run an obstacle course, while carrying large sack of flour on his shoulders. If aspirant did not succeed on course, he got a huge asskicking. Obstacle course included jumping over waterhazards and climbing over the falling trees.

When you see the obstacle course on wife carrying event, you find similar obstacles that was in the story. You have to climb over obstacles ans there is waterhazards and

The obstacle course is nearly 250 meters long and contestants need good physical health. The person, who is on the shoulders, needs to weight over 49kg.  On the picture, you see the most common and uncomfortable position, which the portable person needs to get used to. But you can find your own style, that suit you best.

First competition event is on Friday 5.7.2019, when sprint race starts the event. Saturday 6.7.2019 there is team race and final there is individual race.  Finland,Estonia, Lithuania and Russia has been the champions, but there has been contestants from all over the world; Sri Lanka, Australia, Mexiko and many other, who had traveled a long distance, to be involved on this great event.

Probably the most famous participants, who had been in Sonkajärvi, was basketball player Dennis Rodman.

If you want more information on race or see more pictures of it, go and visit official website www.eukonkanto.fi 

-Kimmo Tirri-