Nothing Says Fun Like Carrying Your Wife For Beer

There are a couple of human competitions each year that demand my attention. One is that crazy cheese rolling event held in England (won TWICE recently by an NC State student). Another? The North American Wife Carrying Championship held each fall in Maine.

Newry, Maine was the site of this fantastically entertaining event. If you're unfamiliar with the contest's particulars, here ya go. According to the New York Post, more than 30 couples competed in the North American Wife Carrying Championship, a 278-yard race during which contestants splash through water, leap over logs and trudge through mud — all while carrying their partner like a sack of potatoes.

I think my favorite thing about the North American Wife Carrying Championship is the prize that these more than two dozen contestants are competing for. Wait for it. The champion leaves with the weight of the “wife” in beer and five times the “wife’s” weight in cash. A couple of clarifications here. First, "wife" is a relative term. Contestants don't have to be attached in matrimony to be attached in this event. And two, NO "wife's" weight is actually broadcast or actually measured. To estimate how much the winning couple receives in the North American Wife Carrying Championship, the winning "wife" is put on one side of a teeter-totter-like scale that is balanced on the other side with cases of beer.

Oh, and your winners of the 2024 North American Wife Carrying Championship? Justine and Caleb Roesler of Wisconsin have done it again. Their winning time over the obstacle course was 1:04. Oh, and should you think of getting in the game next year, these two are a problem. This was a three-peat for the Roeslers as they also prevailed in 2022 and 2023.