Perhaps you prefer sporting events that involve teamwork. If so you might consider attending the American wife Carrying Championships in Maine. In this event each participant navigates a difficult obstacle course that includes an 18-foot (6-meter) long pit filled with 3 feet (1 meter) of water a downhill run on grass and two log hurdles. The catch? He must do all of this while carrying a woman (though not necessarily his wife) on his back. Dropping the “wife” at any point during the race results in receiving penalty points. The unusual sporting event originated as a joke in Scandinavia and is supposedly based on a past practice in which men found women to marry by running to their village picking them up and carrying them off.