A Screw Loose in Sonkajarvi

   The Finns are just plain crazy. These are the people who have shouting choirs, (not an auditory treat!) and cell-phone tossing competitions. One week from today, they will stage another of their ventures into the world of wonky. They will be hosting the 13th World Wife-Carrying Championships in the town of Sonkajarvi, about 500 kilometres north of Helsinki. The town has built a permanent 10,000-seat stadium to accomodate the annual day of races.
   Forty couples from around the world will be heading to Sonkajarvi to take part, including Team Canada, Toronto's Markus Raty and Dorothy Kazula. The couples will race around a 253.5-metre dirt and gravel track that includes two hurdles and a 30-metre water hazard that's about a metre deep.
   "Couples" do not have to be married. As long as the team consists of a man and his wife, girlfriend or a woman "he may have found further afield," they fit within the rules. In wife-carrying, the woman can weigh as little as 49 kilograms, approximately 105 pounds, but anyone lighter than that would have to wear sandbags.First prize is the woman's weight in beer. Organizers put the winning team's "rider" on one end of a teeter-totter and load cases of beer onto the other end until the beer balances the rider.
   This year's biggest news is that Dennis Rodman wants to compete. The ever-obliging Finns are holding a national contest to find Rodman a "wife" for the day.