Everyone is familiar with the tug-of-war. It’s played in grade schools, in high schools, in colleges, at outdoor festivals. It’s been demonstrated in television shows and movies. It’s two groups of people trying to pull on opposite sides of a rope, and it has such a simple set of rules that it doesn’t even need any governing body.
…but it has one anyway. Dozens, in fact.
The Tug-of-War International Federation, or TWIF, is the international agency which oversees the various national tug-of-war organizations.
What national organizations? Well, there’s the Hellenic Tug-of-War Federation in Greece, the Svenska Dragkampforbundet in Sweden, the US Amateur Tug of War Association, and Tug of War Zambia, among many others.
And they hold world championships.
While many of the member states may have a small community of athletes, the TWIF has an irregularly published magazine (produced one or two times a year… there strangely isn’t a lot of international tug of war news) and anti-doping restrictions that can presumably get people tossed from the famed heights of semi-professional horizontal rope-pulling.
Still, they have far more participants than the World Egg Throwing Federation, so there is that.
Question of the night: What’s a friendly competition you enjoy?
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