Mr. Elbel

March 29th, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^

This is amazing. But what happens if they somehow make it past the sand? Do they just get to immediately retire to the Fierljeppen HOF and roll in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives? No disrespect to people in wheelchairs, but that would suck like crazy. Like... here you go. You're awesome at this sport. Now you can't walk ever again. Congrats!

LSAClassOf2000

March 29th, 2014 at 2:32 PM ^

I hate to say it, but I have actually heard of this before, but I knew it as "Pultstockspringen" because it is actually also played in Ostfriesland, a part of Lower Saxony on the German-Dutch border. There are leagues and tournaments supposedly, but the history is what you might think - this was a common way to cross canals back in the day. 

Thorin

March 29th, 2014 at 7:06 PM ^

I've found that if you ask a Korean person something like "Do you like zeevruchten?" about 95% will answer "Yeah, I love it!" or "No, not really." I think Dutch is close to what English sounds like to people who can't speak English. 

Njia

March 29th, 2014 at 10:47 PM ^

Some of my most vivid memories of trips to The Netherlands in the 90s were commercials for Mentos and a guy I swear was MTV's Mark Goodman doing his VJ thing for an MTV-like channel in Holland. I had watched Goodman in the States during the 80s so to see what was otherwise familiar but completely spoken in Dutch (even "Goodman" who must have learned to speak it pretty damn well at some point if that was really him) made me think I was living in a parallel universe.