TRENDING: Gets wife’s weight in beer as prize

NPnews24 Online, Finland: You may have seen various competitions going around the world. But this one is really different, the event inspired by a Finnish legend, “Ronkainen the Robber”. In 19^thcentury tale, a gang village villages and steals the women.

In this event a Lithuanian man and his wife have won the world ‘wife carrying’ title, leaping over timber and wading through waist-high water to beat dozens of other couples for a second year running. The prize for it is the wife’s weight in beer.

Vytautas Kirkliauskas and his wife Neringa Kirliauskience cleared a grueling 253.3 meter of obstacle course in just 1 minute 6.72 seconds. That was just a tenth of a second ahead of former six-time world champion, FInaland’s Taisto Miettinen and his new partner Katja Kovanen.

The rules stipulate that the woman must be over 17 years of age and weigh at least 49 kilograms (108 pounds). Despite the event’s name, couples don’t have to be married, and organizers say male contestants could “steal a neighbor’s wife” if they don’t have a female companion.

Along with the pride that comes from being crowned world champions, the couple also returns home with the wife’s weight in beer. “The heavier the wife, the more beer for them,” said Pitkanen.