World Tug of War Championships Sursee, Switzerland 2023

Written by Dr Rob Scott, UK

World Tug of War Championships Sursee, Switzerland 2023

Despite attempts by British Air Traffic Control, and communication issues over whether we should leave Basel airport on the French or German side, all four chiropractors travelling from America, Canada and the UK to Zurich and Basel managed to arrive at Sursee within about 20 minutes of each other! A good start!

FICS Team – Mark Strudwick, Kaila Alvarez, Shauna Dunbar and Rob Scott made up the team and we had a whole day to find our way around the huge and seemingly complex, convoluted campus at Sursee. We located our tent and got our paperwork sorted out, met with the TWIF great and good and were ready for an 8:30 start the next morning.

The weather had been a bit wet on arrival and the repurposed cornfield looked a bit sad there were fears about how it would hold up but fortunately the sun shone for the next four days, and the ground dried up. Our tent was perfectly placed but unfortunately had only a mud floor which was causing concerns but after a few conversations we were rewarded with a wooden floor and a perfect outdoor clinic!

Normally, there is a slow start to the first day, but we got hit with rush hour right from the start and it continued like that for the rest of the competition. Fortunately, the Swiss organisation had thoughtfully located a bar on the way back to our rooms, so we easily earned our evening pit stop. And I must congratulate the team on the way they worked non-stop without complaint – plenty of water and coffee definitely helped but it was hot, noisy and incessant.

On the work side, we treated 263 patients in 4 days and another 91 for follow-up treatment. As you would expect from tug of war the majority of injuries were to the lumbar and thoracic spine but we had an ankle and a TMJ to keep the variety going.

People often ask who won and the answer is that there are 12 different competitions and sometimes there are 2 or 3 going on at the same time and unless you are able to watch the whole process it is very difficult to know what is going on and it is only the raised volume of pitch side noise that lets us know a final is happening. But the Swiss, Basque Country and Chinese Taipei definitely came away winners in many of the categories.

In the evenings they had medal ceremonies which were great fun and the whole tug-of-war family, which is quite small, came to celebrate. And they do know how to celebrate!  The opening ceremony for the World Championships was also great fun with the Swiss cultural staples of yodelling, alpenhorn, rope skipping and cow bells – always cow bells!

And after 4 hot days, it was all over, and we dispersed around Europe. Kaila went to work at the CSIT Games in Italy for FICS, Mark and I had holidays in Switzerland and Shauna caught up with close family who she had not seen for years because of Covid!

Switzerland is a lovely country, fantastically green with a constant backdrop of mountains, it is incredibly expensive and as you go through the countryside you can always hear the cow bells! My thanks to TWIF for looking after us again. They are well-oiled machines and whilst we don’t bother them too much, nothing is a problem for them, and I know they appreciate our work as much as we appreciate their cooperation.

And finally, a big thank you to Mark, Kaila and Shauna for your hard work, and your diligence with the note-taking (it was almost perfect!) and I hope we can meet again at some amazing sports event and relive the memories we made, but without the cow bells.

Watching the pack up on last day