Canadian champs win wife-carrying contest

MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) - A championship couple from Canada trotted off with first-place honours in the wife-carrying contest at the Finn Grand Fest 2005 in upper Michigan on the weekend.
Markus Raty and Dorothy Kazula of Toronto claimed victory with a time of 33.28 seconds, the Mining Journal of Marquette reported. They raced "Estonian-style," where the woman hangs upside-down with her legs around the man's shoulders and her arms around his waist.
Other styles include the popular piggyback carry and the wrestling-inspired over-the-shoulder fireman's carry.
Friday's race at the upper Michigan festival probably wasn't as intense as the Wife-Carrying World Championships in Sonkajarvi, Finland, in July where the Canadian pair placed 21st in a field of almost 50 teams.
But the 60-metre obstacle course at Northern Michigan University still featured tires and a kiddie pool to run through, plus a hazardous bale of hay to jump.
Raty and Kazula, winners of the last two Canadian Finn Grand Fest competition, said they didn't plan to compete in Friday's race.
"I'm still kind of nursing a sore hamstring," Raty said. "But I have, like, 14 relatives here."
According to legend, wife-carrying originated in Finland in the 19th century, when a man would run into a nearby village, pick up a wife he deemed satisfactory, and carry her back to his home.
The first "modern" wife-carrying events started in Finland as a joke. The idea took off and now there are contests around the world.