6 Super Strange Sports Games That You May Love

Nikole Stewart |

Updated: Mar 17, 2025

Strange Sports Games Main Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

There are sports games everyone knows, and then there are those strange sports games likely not part of your sports knowledge repertoire. Some are a reflection of regional cultures, while others have a strong global following.

Regardless of their popularity, they remind us just how creative the human spirit can be to engage in competition, even if it means doing so in strange, otherworldly ways. These strange sports games will expand your mind beyond basketball and football and allow you to appreciate new ways to challenge the mind and body.

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1. Bathtubbing

image of a woman in a bathtub with sunglasses on and her hair wrapped up in a towel. Bathtub racing is a strange sport. — Credit: Unsplash

A quirky sport with a long history and fanatic following is bathtubbing. It involves racing in bathtubs. Bathtubbing, interestingly enough, is worldwide, with varying rules depending on the location.

Some competitions involve decorated, motor-powered bathtubs, while others keep it simple with plain tubs moved by paddles. A 36-mile course was first held in 1967 by the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society.

2. Race Walking

Image of a woman's shoes and ankles, dressed in athletic shoes and pants as she speed walks, which is a strange sport. — Credit: Unsplash

Walking is the most common activity we all engage in daily, but did you know it is now a sport? Race walking involves competitively walking at a very fast pace. Race walking is one of the strange sports games that focus on long-distance.

When participating, one foot must be on the ground at all times, and the supporting leg must straighten from the point of contact. That leg must remain straight until the body passes over it. The sport was an original track and field event at the English Amateur Athletics Association in 1880. Common distances are between 3,000 meters and 100 kilometers, or 9.8 feet.

3. Artistic Roller Skating

Artistic Roller Skating Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

Roller skating is nothing unusual, but did you know there is a competitive sport involving roller skating and not just one straightforward way? The sport involves several disciplines: figures, freestyle, pairs, dance, solo dance, precision, and show teams.

It’s a lot like figure skating, only with quad or inline roller skates. Organized by the USA Roller Sports group in 1937, there are several amateur competitions around the world. Interestingly enough, the sport has been in the World Games since 1981.

4. Jump Rope Sprint

image of the bottom half of a woman mid-jump jumping rope. Did you know that jump rope racing. — Credit: Unsplash+

Discovered in 2010, Jump Rope Sprint is another one of those strange sports games that you haven’t heard about. This sport involves sprinting while jumping rope once per stride. Mark Krull, Stephen Ihli, and Eric Small invented the sport and are petitioning to have the sport added to the Olympic Games.

5. Finger Wrestling

Image of two hands pressed together as if stretching fingers or getting ready to finger wrestle — Credit: Unsplash+

A traditional rural sport in Bavaria, Germany, “fingerhakeln” (finger wrestling) involves two men of the same age and weight sitting face to face and threading their fingers together with a leather band.

Since 1959, the German Finger Wrestling Championship has held competitions. And for those interested, finger wrestling requires everyone in costumes. Unfortunately, the origin of fingerhakeln in Germany is unknown. However, some believe that the practice was to settle arguments in southern Germany and Australia.

6. Log Rolling

Started in the 1800s during the great logging era, log rolling originated from the lumberjack and log traditions in the Northeast and Canada. The sport began to prevent rivers from jamming with logs. Loggers would challenge one another to step onto and stay on the logs the longest. And so log rolling was born.

The first unofficial Log Rolling Championship took place in 1898 in Omaha, Nebraska. However, Canada didn’t officially establish this sport until the 1960s. The sport requires that competitors roll the log on a body of water by walking atop it. The logger who remains on the log the longest without falling is the winner.