The web press triathlon

Like any good festival, Ilosaarirock has a plethora of things to do other than listening to bands. To give you a taste of these extracurricular activities, web press decided to hold a triathlon showcasing the more athletic things available. Our triathlon consisted of rope ladder climbing, sumo wrestling and husband carrying. The prize was fame, glory and bragging rights.

First we headed for the rope ladder challenge. We were greeted by Semi from Magic Games. Besides rope ladder climbing, Magic Games host  sumo wrestling and giant boxing at festivals throughout Finland. Semi gave us an example on how it’s done. It seemed to be very easy. We all thought we had this thing licked. Oh, the arrogance, the hubris…

We each dropped from the ladders literally from step one, with credulous giggles. Despite additional coaching from Semi, we couldn’t master the ladders no matter how hard we tried. Score: nil-nil.

Our second sport was sumo wrestling. For those unfamiliar with the sport, the basic idea is to get your opponent to fall down or push them outside the ring. For health and safety (and comedy) reasons, festival sumo wrestling includes a kind of a fat suit. Esko from Magic Games explained the rules and helped us don the gear.   Off we went.

We battled through three rounds, which all ended with the red contestant victorious. The outfit was hot and heavy in 25 °C weather, but it was fun. In the end the red contestant took a swan dive on top of the loser to celebrate her flawless victory.

Our third sport was husband carrying, a gender-bender variation of the “traditional” Finnish sport of wife carrying (yes, it’s really a thing). To play the part of the husband, we recruited Antti, who was lounging about next to Rento Stage. The inaugural Ilosaarirock husband carrying championship race took place on the Rento Stage beach and finished in a tie.

The overall winner was the red contestant!

Text: Elina Saarela and Tiia Heikkinen
Photos: Markus Korpi-Hallila
Translation: Jaakko Suvanto