The strangest sport nobody know

July 12, 2014 00:31

In 1936, a troupe of 35 acrobats from a small town in Central India traveled to the Berlin Olympic Games to demonstrate the ancient sport of Mallakhamb.

At a formal gala convened by the International Olympic Committee, athletics officials and eager media from around the world gathered to witness the 900-year-old exotic sports global unveiling.

The team's intricate feats of contortion, strength, and death-defying gymnastics atop a skinny, eight-and-a-half foot pole thrilled Adolf Hitler; the Fhrer personally bestowed each acrobat with an honorary Olympic medal before the group returned to India.

The world's first real glimpse of this curious athletic form was also its last. But today, in the lush highlands that hug sprawling Mumbai, this peculiar sport with apparatuses that look uncannily like medieval torture devises is still practiced.

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