Coquitlam has produced its fair share of top athletes: NHLer Mathew Barzal and Olympians Leah Pells, Tara Self and Larkyn Austman.
Now, the city can add wife carrying champions to that list.
Sunday, Eric Blaida and Anna Stonkevich of Coquitlam were crowned winners of the wife carrying contest at Burnaby’s annual Scandinavian Midsummer Festival.
For their effort, the couple was awarded Stonkevich’s weight in beer — about four cases of Carlsberg pilsner.
Another Coquitlam couple, Mark Fowler and Katelyn Colwell, finished second.
Wife carrying originated in Finland sometime in the 1800s but its actual purpose at the time is still a little clouded.
One legend attributes the activity to Herkko Rosvo-Ronkainen, a notorious robber who commandeered a gang of thieves to pillage local villages of food and women, carrying them on their backs as they fled.
Another says Rosvo-Ronkainen trained his mercenaries to be stronger and faster than rival thugs by having them carry large, heavy sacks on their backs that eventually became a sport.
A third theory says the activity was more generalized and born of necessity, as a dearth of single women in the Finnish countryside forced men to travel to other villages to steal other men’s wives as their own.
The first modern-day wife carrying competition was held in Finland in 1992 and a world championship event is held every year in Sonkajärvi.
A North American championship was created in 1999. It’s held every October at the Sunday River Resort in western Maine.
Competitors must navigate a 254 m course including two obstacles — a high jump and water hazard — while carrying a passenger over their shoulder.
The teammates don’t have to be legally married.
