{"id":580,"date":"2005-10-09T11:38:14","date_gmt":"2005-10-09T15:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2005\/10\/09\/wife-stealing-competition-lives-on\/"},"modified":"2005-10-09T11:38:14","modified_gmt":"2005-10-09T15:38:14","slug":"wife-stealing-competition-lives-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2005\/10\/09\/wife-stealing-competition-lives-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Wife-Stealing Competition Lives On"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n

Erhin Armstrong of Brighton, Mass., carries his wife April
\n as he races over a 278-yard obstacle course during the 2005 North American
\n Wife Carrying Championship, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2005, at the Sunday River
\n ski resort in Newry, Maine. <\/p>\n

The Armstrongs beat out 19 other couples to
\n win April’s weight in beer, five times her weight in cash and the chance
\n to compete at the World Championship in Finland. <\/p>\n

The competition originated
\n with the combination two pieces of 19th century Finnish history.
\n According to legend, Ronkainen the Robber required prospective members
\n of his
\n gang to take part in a competition while carrying a weight on their
\n backs. At
\n the same time, it was not uncommon for women to be stolen from villages
\n in rural Finland. (AP Photo\/Robert F. Bukaty)<\/p>\n

If this competition can be expanded to include a "Senior" division,
\n the Dowbrigade and Norma Yvonne will go into training immediately for
\n next year’s
\n race. And if we win, we’ll take Norma’s weight, in hundred dollar
\n bills, please.<\/em><\/p>\n

frpm AP<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erhin Armstrong of Brighton, Mass., carries his wife April as he races over a 278-yard obstacle course during the 2005 North American Wife Carrying Championship, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2005, at the Sunday River ski resort in Newry, Maine. The Armstrongs … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wacky-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}