A New Romanian Olympic Sport

The Romanian Olympics

The winter Olympics will soon be taking place in Torino, Italy. We wish all the athletes well, and we look forward to a good competition. I’m not sure if there will be many Romanians taking part. There are several ski slopes in the country, but while the mountains may be world class, I’m not sure the facilities are. I do not know the availability of training times and support, so I’m not sure how the country will fare in the competition.

Romania’s strongest sports are football (soccer) and, of course, gymnastics. There is another sport that’s truly the national sport but, unfortunately, it is not recognized at any international venue. It is Rug Beating.

Any hour of the day and nearly any hour of the night the boom, boom, boom of wicket against carpet echoes throughout every neighborhood in the cities of Romania. Every apartment block has at least one metal rug bar anchored in concrete. The rugs are slung over the metal bar and men then take whatever frustration they have accumulated in the past few days out on the poor rugs.

When first we moved to our apartment I wasn’t sure what the bars were for, I thought perhaps they might be chin up bars, but the metal rods where too think for good hand holds. It wasn’t long before I looked out our window expecting to see someone dribbling a basketball from the sound of a steady thump, thump, thump. It wasn’t a basketball; it was an old fellow with his beater and his rugs. It had to have been an old fellow for the younger fellows beat with a furiousness that sounds like gunfire. It is men that perform this sport. Sometimes women might assist, as in the picture taken looking out our back window, but mostly it is an individual male that beats rugs.

There are several categories of competition in the rug beating world. First is the amount of dust one can coax from his carpet. Secondly is the speed of beats. These are not as popular as the noise factor. The gentleman who can raise the loudest decibel level with his beater is the champion of the sport. A final category which I haven’t seen much of, is a mixed team, husband and wife, alternating beating the rug one side and the other, sort of like synchronized swimming, but with rug beaters and dust.

These guys are really dedicated. One snowy evening before Christmas I was carrying my pungas full of groceries trudging up the walkway that I take on my way home and even in the snow the rug beaters were out. I marveled at the man’s dedication to be out past dark on such a blustery night, but perhaps it was that things hadn’t been going to well at home for him and he needed to get out and beat something.

I am going to suggest that the Romanian Sports Authority look into asking if the Olympics can’t make rug beating a demonstration sport for the next go round. I know that the Romania will hold it’s own on the world stage in this sport. I propose that they designate Rug Beating to be a winter sport and try and also include carutas racing in the summer games.