Mud, beer and cash: Annual wife-carrying championship attracts competitive couples to Maine

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NEWRY, Maine (AP) — An annual event involving dirt, beer and cash once again drew dozens of eager competitors to a ski resort in Maine on Saturday.

More than 30 couples competed in the North American Wife Carrying Championship, a 278-yard (254-meter) race during which contestants splash through water, leap over logs and trudge through mud — all while carrying their partner like a sack of potatoes.

The sport’s origin story isn’t exactly politically correct. It's based on a 19th century Finnish legend involving a man known as “Ronkainen the Robber,” whose gang was known to pillage villages and carry away the women, according to one of the explanations included on the website wife-carrying.org.

Traditionally, the Finnish event featured male competitors carrying a woman. On Saturday, competing couples didn’t have to be married, nor did they have to be a man and a woman.

One contestant — the carrier — was dressed as Mr. Incredible, while his “wife” was dressed entirely in pink. They and others were cheered on heartily by crowds on both sides of the course at Sunday River ski resort. Most managed to navigate the grassy hillside, but a few stumbled in the mud, their female partners jumping off before they regrouped and kept going.

Most of the participants use a technique in which the “wife” is carried like a backpack — upside down — to ensure the runners’ arms are free for the greatest agility. Wearing smiles and grimaces, competitors end up wet and muddy.

The champion leaves with the weight of the “wife” in beer and five times the “wife's” weight in cash. To estimate the amount they win, the winning “wife” is put on one side of a see-saw-like scale that organizers balance out on the other side with cases of beer.

“We come each year for the fun,” said Wade Porterfield of Cuba, New York, who competed with his wife, Sara Porterfield. “There is really a low chance of us winning. Pretty much everybody cheers everybody on and it’s a blast.”