Strange Sport Identification - help please

mr_poll

Hi all - just returned from a nice hol inn Italy, first time there and will be going back, hopefully to cycle and not just lie by a pool. Whilst there, in the bar they showed Rai sports which had more strange sports on than Eurosport. I saw something that I have never seen before and cannot place the sport at all - can the collective brain of BR help?

Essentially the sport involved 2 teams of 5 playing on a clay court like a large tennis or volley ball court with no net hitting a ball from one end to the other with what looked like tambourines. Seemed well organised with an international Italy vs France and a men and woman's comp although there seemed to be be only a few hundred supporters in attendance. Any idea's?

pauldavid

Did the winning team sing a little celebratory song accompanying themselves on the tambourines??????

pat1cp

Tamburello 8)

mcj78

Sounds interesting - was there a rythm based points system going on & was Liam Gallagher playing(badly)?

One of my favourite strange sports is jai alai - couple of guys bounce a golf ball at each other off a wall at 200mph using wicker basket glove-type things - awesome 8)

mr_poll

Jai alai is that the one where the gloves are curved allowing serious velocity to be gained when throwing the balls - I think the Jackass Guys got things thrown at them with the pro's using those in an early series - serious bruising.

In case this helps the tambourine's didnt have the little cymbals attached.

Pross

Thought the one with the curved glove was pelota? It was a demo sport at the Barcelona Olympics as it is a national sport in Spain.

mcj78

I think pelota is the original Catalan name for it - the Americans probably renamed it... any update on the mysterious Tambourine game?

graeme_s-2

Having done a quick bit of googling (I just searched for tambourine ball game) the guy who said it's called tamburello was right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamburello

Homer J

It aint strange until you seen kabaddi

MountainMonster

I found some kabaddi website, is that just wrestling but only for indian people?

afx237vi

MountainMonster wrote:

I found some kabaddi website, is that just wrestling but only for indian people?

From vague memories of watching kabbadi back when Channel 4 actually showed interesting programmes, it's like British Bulldog but you have to hold your breath for some inexplicable reason.

How the kabaddi judges know whether the players are really holding their breath or not, I do not know. I bet secret breathing in kabaddi is almost as bad as doping in cycling.

sandy hill

From what I recall Kabaddi was basically two teams, one of hunters and the other the prey.

The hunters held hands making a chain whilst the the prey forayed forward trying to touch the one of the hunters without either of the hunters at either end of the chain touching them in return.

Whilst making the foray the chap had to hold his breath and this was signified by repeatedly say Kabaddi. When you could say Kabaddi no more you return to your side of the court.

mr_poll

Graeme_S wrote:

Having done a quick bit of googling (I just searched for tambourine ball game) the guy who said it's called tamburello was right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamburello

Oh dear that's embarrassing - I presumed that that kind of google search would give me nothing as the tambourine connection I thought was my uneducated Anglo Saxon view on things. Should've trusted the power of Google.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4ZekJXAo5M

For those that are bored here is a vid.


Yes Kabadi was bizarre and you did have to continually say Kabadi to prove you werent taking a breath. The prey got a point by either getting to the other side or breaking the chain. Ah teenage insomnia watching naff sports whilst waiting for a vagually "promising" foreign films to come on.