Well, This Is an Unusual Contest

If slogging through mud potentially infected with bacteria doesn't seem like a good idea to you, this will probably also fail your survival test: Intrepid athletes donned snorkels and slithered through slime over the weekend during one of Britain's quirkiest sporting events, the World Bog Snorkeling Championships. The annual competition in the tiny town of Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, sees competitors race to complete two lengths of a 60-yard water-filled trench cut through a peat bog, reports the AP. They can use flippers on their feet, but conventional swimming strokes are banned.

Some contestants accessorized their snorkels, masks, and flippers with more flamboyant touches—one carried a giant plastic toad on their head; another had a bathing cap adorned with flowers. Spectators also got in on the fun, with two wearing pink cardboard boxes proclaiming them to be limited-edition bog-snorkeling Barbie and Ken. Competitors at the 35th annual contest were hoping to beat the time of current world record-holder Neil Rutter, who won in 1 minute, 18 seconds in 2018.

(More strange stuff stories.)