In fact, it was over the past weekend that a teapot racing event was held in Wellington, New Zealand's capital city

Apr 1, 2015 14:37 GMT  ·  By

Apparently, there is one sport that even guys and gals who aren't big fans of physical activity can get behind: teapot racing. No, really, this sport actually exists. Mind you, it was just this past weekend that a teapot racing event was held in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand.

As made obvious by its name, the sport boils down to making teapots jump through hoops. Literally. Thus, the funny-looking vessels are expected to complete courses with ramps, tunnels and all sorts of other obstacles.

Since teapots can't move on their own, the only way that they can complete obstacle courses is with the help of radio-controlled cars especially designed to carry them on their backs. True, some might call this cheating, but who cares? It looks like a whole lot of fun.

According to Oddity Central, this rather peculiar and fairly new sport is the brainchild of a steampunk enthusiast named Simone Montgomerie. The first teapot race was held last year as part of the Oamaru Steampunk Festival in New Zealand.

The sport is steadily gaining ground

Plenty of steampunk lovers wanted to participate in the teapot racing event held in Wellington over the past weekend. However, after careful consideration, organizers allowed just 10 converted teapots to venture out on the obstacle course designed especially to trip them.

The converted teapots had 2 minutes to complete the race. Some might think that guiding a radio-controlled cars carrying a teapot through tunnels and over or under all sorts of obstacles is about as close to child's play as you can get, but it looks like this isn't really the case.

On the contrary, event organizer Helen Jansen, member of the Capital! Steampunk community, insists that completing the race in time is much more difficult than it looks. “You really have to take it slowly and gently and it’s quite tense because you’re against the clock,” she said.

Although the steampunk movement is not yet what some would call a mainstream movement, Helen Jansen insists that teapot racing is steadily but surely gaining ground. “This event has pre-sold more tickets than any other so far,” she explained in an interview.

Teapot racing event held in Wellington, New Zealand (5 Images)

Teapot racing is an actual sport
The teapots all rest atop radio-controlled carsThe cars are guided through obstacle courses
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