Wok racing

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
Type	Winter sport, Time trial
Equipment	Wok
Venue	Bobsleigh tracks

Wok racing has been developed by the German TV host and entertainer Stefan Raab: Modified 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.

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.

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 undersides of the woks are often heated with a blowlamp before the race.