The thirst-quenching offer to win your weight in beer brought a number of crazed couples to the Wife Carrying Contest on a scorching Sunday afternoon in Burnaby.
The signature event of the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival also drew a throng of curious onlookers, intrigued by the entertaining obstacle race.
“Is this an actual sport?” exclaimed one able-bodied young man, eyeing the cases of Carlsberg to be won. “I need to get me a wife.”
In the old days in Finland, a would-be husband wishing to marry a girl in the next village had to carry her home.
This being 2015, organizers are now politically correct — “‘Husband’ does the carrying and ‘Wife’ is the one being carried,” explain the rules makers. “These labels have no reflection on actual marital status or gender.”
Hence, after the timed rundowns, the final pitted boy/girl team Thighs in the Skies vs. the all-male Team Beer.
And, in yet another example of why driving drunk never ends well, Team Beer predictably bailed on one of the trickier obstacles.
Which handed the weight-in-beer award to Alysia Baldwin, all 134 pounds of her, who was carried to the finish line by her 250-pound boyfriend Kent Hodgson.
“It was bumpy,” Baldwin said of her Estonian-style ride — legs crossed around hubby’s neck, carried both upside down and backward.
The lanky Hodgson, who stands six-foot-six, said he doesn’t train at all.
“I’m an engineer — I’m a book nerd.”
Maybe their unique pre-game ritual proved the difference.
“We flew in from Maui,” grinned Baldwin. “We got in at 8 a.m., had a nap for four hours, and then came here.”
For their trouble, the Vancouver pair won Baldwin’s weight in beer, which turned out to be five 24-bottle cases of Carlsberg.
And perhaps the lesson in teamwork will lay the foundation for a race together through the game of life.
