Intro:

American couple snatch victory in the UK Wife Carrying Championships

Script:

The eighth annual UK Wife-Carrying Championships took place in south-east England in Dorking, Surrey.

Legend has it - the weighty sport heralds from a Scandinavian tradition, where raiders needed to be swift on their legs to escape when stealing womenfolk from neighbouring villages.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr. Robert McCaffrey, Event Organiser

"If you're really serious about winning this race, you should probably use the 'Estonian' hold which is where the wife hangs upside down on your back. But you know there is only two or three people that are really in with a chance of winning this and everyone else should just enjoy it."

In the UK edition of the championships, couples race over a hilly 380 metre course, which features hay bale obstacles and a splash zone.

There is a minimum 50kg weight rule, for the 'wife ' or person being carried, as some women carry men and others are same sex pairings.

Entrants are weighed before the start of the race to ensure they meet this minimum 50Kg load and any under this threshold have to carry a rucksack of extra weight to compete.

The prize fund is particularly sought after with a barrel of ale going to the victor.

American couple Jonathan Schwochert and his wife Charlotte Xiong took top honours in a time of just over two minutes.

The couple, originally from Milwaukee, have been living and working in London for the past six years and admitted that they had been training hard for the event.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Jonathan Schwochert (Q: How did you train for this?)

"So I do a bit of training regularly, so I just added some weights to my legs. Did some weighted runs. Then once a week we went a made our own course and did this by ourselves, sadly, with many confused onlookers."

As well as bragging rights the married pair can also look forward to representing the UK in the world wife-carrying Championships in Finland later this year.