It’s not about how slim it is, how many mega-pixels it has or even whether it works: it’s about how far it goes, and we’re not talking battery life either. You’ll do better with mega-pecs as opposed to mega-pixels, and ‘a 3210 will out-do the latest Samsung any day’. The sport brought to you by the very fathers of modern day mobile communications technology, the Finns, has found its way onto our shores, with the first UK Mobile Phone Throwing Championships taking place last Summer and another to come this year.

The ‘sport’ entails flinging a cellular phone (preferably heavy, old and no longer in use) across a field, the winner evidently being the person that throws it the furthest. Working class heroes, football hooligans and couch potatoes step forward please; anyone can enter and as the organisers state, “This is your chance to become a UK Champion”.  Last year’s victor by a comfortable margin was Chris Hughff, who hurled his handset close to the entire length of a football field – 92.3 meters – in the process setting a new national record. He was agonizingly close to Mikko Lampi of Finland’s world record of 94.7  meters.

The throwing of mobiles in a competitive setting has taken the alternative sports world by storm, sweeping across Europe and gathering increased popularity with each competition. Obviously, those ingenious Finns have taken to it like fish to water . They’ve developed different strains of the sport: ‘Original’, where length of throw is all that counts and ‘Freestyle’, where length, style, aesthetics and ‘creative choreographics’ are all factors in determining  a winner. They’ve even got a junior event: according to organisers, “The children are thrilled to be allowed to throw away those expensive phones”. In addition, the Netherlands has particularly embraced the activity, with one of the small nation’s major cell-phone networks setting up its own tournament with some great prizes and a good level of media coverage.

To most, save the radically competitive folk out there and those of us that are lucky enough to possess the innate ability to lob a cell-phone a long way, mobile phone throwing is purely a novelty. It does nevertheless serve a noble purpose: charity. “According to estimates, 75 million mobile phones are languishing in cupboards and drawers across the UK. Placed end-to-end, these would stretch the entire length of the Great Wall of China almost five times over. These phones can either be recycled for their materials or donated to poorer countries”.

If your interest has been sparked by this unorthodox implementation of the cellular phone , the UK championships are set to be held at the Tooting Bec Athletics Complex in South London, some time in August. The location of training sessions may prove slightly problematic; safety and self-dignity being potential issues. 
And you thought “The Extreme Ironing World Championships” showed ingenious use of a household item.