QUIRKY WORLD... Finnish couple win World Wife Carrying Championship

FINLAND: A couple has narrowly won the 19th World Wife Carrying Championships — a quirky competition in which men race to be the fastest while carrying a female teammate-

Ville Parviainen and Janette Oksman cleared the gruelling 253.5 metre obstacle course in 63.75 seconds, less than a second ahead of Britain’s Rich Blake Smith and Anna Marguerite Smith.

Thirty-six couples from a dozen countries including Australia, Japan, and the United States took part at the central Finnish municipality of Sonkajarvi, north of the capital, Helsinki.