LLANWRTYD WELLS, WALES — "How do you like our crazy little town?" the people of this crazy little town asked me over a pint. “It's weird," I said. Just like I like it.
With the 2012 Summer Games in London now a wrap, the world's attention shifts slightly westward to Llanwrtyd Wells, "the smallest town in Britain” and home of the Olympics of weird sports. The inaugural World Alternative Games is a spoof on the Games featuring nearly three dozen weird sports held over a fortnight.
What qualifies for weird here in the heart of Wales? Glad you asked. We’ve already seen mountain boarding, essentially off-road skateboarding down a 1.4-mile forest road known as “Dave.” There’s woolsack carrying, in which competitors schlep a 60-pound sack of wool 240 yards (women cover 120 yards) over hill and dale. And who doesn’t enjoy the hay-bale toss, where burly men and women see who can toss a hay bale the farthest?
But the highlight of opening weekend was the mountain bike chariot race. It’s exactly what you think it is — a team of two mountain bikes pulling a chariot in a head-to-head race.
Although the World Alternative Games are new, Llanwrtyd (pronounced /CHYAN' urr ted/) Wells has been a hotbed of weird sports since the 1980s, when a bar bet at the Neuadd Arms Hotel inspired the annual Man vs. Horse Marathon. Bog snorkeling soon followed, and it’s only gotten weirder over time.
The curious and bizarre sports were organized into an Olympiad shortly after London learned it would host the 2012 Summer Games. It seems the good folks of Llanwrtyd Wells felt it would be a shame to waste so grand an opportunity to commemorate its contributions to sport, and the goal is to make the Games a biennial event.
Friday’s opening ceremony was marked by rain, of course, so many participants and VIPs sought shelter — and soothing suds — in the Neuadd Arms pub. That's the way it works here: If it's raining, people are drinking. There are just 601 people in this tiny town, but there are four drinking establishments and they do a booming business.
During a slight break in weather, former mayor Carol Prichard, dressed as a Roman gladiator, rode to the town hall in a bicycle chariot. She carried local spring water famous for its "healing powers." Organizer Peter Brown, the Jacques Rogge of alternative sports, declared the games open with the boast, "Llanwrtyd Wells is the fun capitol of Wales and quite possibly the whole of the United Kingdom." After a local men’s choir offered a rendition of Sosban Fach, the procession proceeded to the town centre for the weird sports equivalent of lighting the Olympic torch: pouring spring water into a fountain that will flow throughout the Games.
Later, back at the Neuadd Arms, I explained to the fine folks of Llanwrtyd Wells that I’d come from the United States to photograph these Games. "So, it's world known?" they asked. Well, no. Not exactly. Not yet anyway.
