Wok racing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wok Racing

Georg Hackl's four-person woksled during the Wok World Championship 2006 in Innsbruck
First played 2003
Characteristics
Team members Teams of 1 or 4
Categorization Winter sport, Time trial
Equipment Wok
Venue Bobsleigh tracks

Wok racing has been developed by the German TV host and entertainer Stefan Raab: Modified Chinese woks are used to make timed runs down an Olympic bobsled track. There are competitions for one-person-woksleds and four-person-woksleds, the latter using four woks per sled.

History

Wok racing was inspired by a bet in the German TV show Wetten, dass..?. In November 2003, the First official Wok World Championship was broadcast from Winterberg. The immediate success led to the second world championship in Innsbruck on March 4, 2004. Participants are mostly b-list celebrities like musical artists, actors, and TV hosts, but there are also known athletes that have ongoing professional careers in winter sports, like three-time Olympic luge champion Georg Hackl and the Jamaican Bobsled Team. The third championship took place again in Winterberg on March 5, 2005. In contrast to the previous championships, there were two runs in which all contesters participated. The times of both runs were added. As a further innovation a qualifying round was created in which the participants had to jump from a trickski-jump with woks to determine the starting order. Further the sport event was professionalized.

Equipment

The typical racing woks are the ordinary round-bottomed Chinese pans, usually directly imported from China. The only modifications are that the bottom is reinforced with an epoxy filling and the edges of the wok are coated with polyurethane foam to avoid injuries. Four-person woksleds consist of two pairs of woks, each of them is held together by a rounded frame. The two pairs are connected by a coupling. Due to the rather risky nature of the sport the participants wear heavy protective gear, usually similar to ice hockey equipment. To further reduce friction and the risk of injuries, the athletes wear ladles under their feet.

To improve performance, the underside of the woks are often heated with a blowlamp before the race.

Advertising controversy

Public wok Racing is only practiced once a year: The "World Wok Racing Championships" (German: Wok-WM, German pronunciation: [ˈvɔk.veːˌɛm], lit. Wok Worldcup) are aired as special edition of Raab's show TV total on the German television channel ProSieben. The network used to declare these broadcasts as sporting events. Under German law that allowed the network to treat the massive corporate sponsorship of the event as incidental advertising which didn't count against Germany's strict rules regarding time limits for TV commercials. After a Berlin court ruling in 2009, however, the shows have to be labeled as an infomercial, since - unlike a regular sporting event - the races are explicitly staged for the TV broadcast, and there is strong evidence that the profits of the event sponsorship directly benefit the network.[1]

World Wok Racing Championships

Venues

Ranking

One-person Wok

Stefan Raab and Georg Hackl at the Wok-WM 2008
Year Gold Silver Bronze
2003 Germany Stefan Raab Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly Germany Detlef Soost
2004 Germany Georg Hackl Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly Germany Stefan Raab
2005 Germany Georg Hackl Germany Stefan Raab Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly
2006 Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly Germany Georg Hackl Germany Stefan Raab
2007 Germany Georg Hackl Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly Germany Stefan Raab
2008 Germany Georg Hackl Austria Christian Clerici Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly
2009 Germany Georg Hackl Germany Felix Loch Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly
2010 Germany Georg Hackl Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly Austria Christian Clerici
2011 Germany Georg Hackl Germany Felix Loch Bulgaria Lucy Diakovska
2012 Germany Georg Hackl Bulgaria Lucy Diakovska Republic of Ireland Joey Kelly


Four-person Wok

Year Team Drivers
2003 Dick Brave and the Backbeats Sascha Schmitz, Andre Tolba, Felix Wiegand, Martell Beigang
2004 ProSieben team Ralf Zacherl, Stefan Gödde, Dominik Bachmair, Simon Gosejohann
2005 ProSieben team Joey Kelly, Stefan Gödde, Charlotte Engelhardt, Lukas Hilbert
2006 Fisherman's Friend team Sandra Kiriasis, Christoph Langen, Silke Kraushaar, Susi Erdmann
2007 SEAT team Sven Hannawald, Susi Kentikian, Christina Surer, Markus Beyer
2008 Frosta team Christoph Langen, Susi Erdmann, Silke Kraushaar, Felix Loch
2009 TV total team Stefan Raab, André Lange, Axel Stein, Björn Dunkerbeck
2010 TV total team Stefan Raab, André Lange, Axel Stein, Björn Dunkerbeck
2011 Babybel team Sandra Kiriasis, Tatjana Hüfner, Manuel Machata, Christoph Langen
2012 TV total team Stefan Raab, Felix Loch, Manuel Machata, Tim Lobinger

Records

Speed records

One-Person-Wok
Place Speed in km/h Holder Year
Innsbruck 91.70 Georg Hackl 2007
Altenberg 81.80 2008
Winterberg 105.40 2009
Oberhof 69.40 2010
Königsee 88.20 2012
Four-Person-Wok
Place Speed in km/h Holder Year
Winterberg 114.3 Elton & Friends 2009
Innsbruck 97.00 FROSTA 2006

Course Records

One-Person-Wok
Place Time in seconds Holder Year
Winterberg 47.621 Georg Hackl 2005
Innsbruck 54.840 2007
Four-Person-Wok
Place Time in seconds Holder Year
Winterberg 57.117 TV total 2005
Innsbruck 52.527 Fisherman's Friend 2006

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Gerichtsurteil: Schleichwerbung bei Stefan Raabs "Wok WM" - Nachrichten Fernsehen - WELT ONLINE". Die Welt. December 12, 2008. Retrieved April 1, 2012. 
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.