The Greatest Sport You'll Never Play

Sepak Takraw -- kiss goodbye to your hammies

The Greatest Sport You'll Never Play

The world is full to the brim with obscure sports. From bog snorkelling to wife carrying, cheese rolling to toe wrestling, it's wall to wall weird.

But the overriding theme of these "tests of man skill" is that they are universally and without exception, utter garbage. Like someone simply took an everyday object and jammed it next to an existing pastime to create an invent. Like 'elbow trekking' or 'badger javelin'.

They don't mess with that sort of pointlessness in the Far East. They're too busy playing Sepak Takraw, probably the greatest sport you'll never play. Wikipedia at the ready? Native to the Malay-Thai Peninsula sepak takraw differs from the similar sport of volleyball in its use of a rattan ball and only allowing players to use their feet, knee, chest and head to touch the ball. It is a popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines and India. And it looks a little rough on the hamstrings.

The latest video from the wonderful world of TS (abbreviations! Yeah we're down with the kids) shows Thaliand v Malaysia in the semi final of the Hoengseong Championship last year. We don't know who's who, who won or what the score was. All we know is that this sport rocks our tiny cotton socks off.

<a data-analytics-id="inline-link" href="http://video.uk.msn.com/?mkt=en-gb&amp;from=video_module&amp;vid=63319410-bfa0-4be3-9423-67078d23e425&amp;from=en-gb&amp;fg=dest" rev="62384" target="_blank" title="One of the Coolest Sports Ever" data-url="http://video.uk.msn.com/?mkt=en-gb&amp;from=video_module&amp;vid=63319410-bfa0-4be3-9423-67078d23e425&amp;from=en-gb&amp;fg=dest" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" data-hl-processed="none">Video: One of the Coolest Sports Ever</a>

Marc Chacksfield
Content Director

As Content Director of Shortlist, Marc likes nothing more than to compile endless lists of an evening by candlelight. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.