Pillow Fighting Becomes A Legitimate Sport!

The next time you are caught in a pillow fight with your sibling or friend, just tell your parents you are training for the championship - For believe it or not, smacking an opponent with a fluffy pillow is now a legitimate sport, complete with a world cup and all!

The inaugural Pillow Fight World Cup, which took place on May 17th at the Warsaw Polish National Home, a dingy boxing gym in Brooklyn, New York, attracted eight contestants from Austria, Japan, Sweden and the USA.

The rules were quite simple. Matches comprised of two rounds, each lasting two minutes. Similar to boxing, points were awarded for hits to the body and head. Players were penalized if their backs were turned at anytime during the match or if they dropped on their knees.

While the contestants claimed to having a pillow fighting technique, in the end it all came down to who could bash their opponent the hardest with their down feather pillow. 24-year old Austrian, Gudrun Grondinger impressed the judges with her hard-hitting deft moves and was crowned, the World's first Pillow Fight World Cup Champion.

The fun competition was organized by Brooklyn photographer Andrew Thompson, who is also the brains behind Punk Rock Pillow fight, a sporadic event that takes place at different venues in New York City. Here adults, dressed in costumes, pound each other with pillows until an opponent succumbs or the time runs out, in which case the referee decides the winner. Maybe the next time around Andrew will also include the men to the World Cup Pillow Fighting Championships!

Resources:odditycentral.com, dailymail.co.uk, wierdnews.aol.com