I might have been feeling sorry for myself last Monday, when all my family and friends in England had the day off for Mayday, but not to be beaten on bank holidays the Danes got the day off on Thursday instead. Unlike its name suggests, Kristi Himmelfartsdag is a fairly serious religious holiday also known as Ascension day, which takes place 39 days after Easter Sunday to Jesus’ ascension into heaven. The name is pretty entertaining to non-Danes, although not very much happens on Ascension day besides communions and family events, so it was a very quiet day.
The day after Ascension Day however, was a bit more exciting. This is because, on the first Friday in May each year, the park at Aarhus University is home to Kapsejladsen, a boat race which has been happening since the start of the 1990’s (and which has been open to all departments since 2000). It is organised by the Medicine department, who founded the race as a competition with the Dentistry students and as a parody of the famous Cambridge/Oxford boat race, but believe it or not, it now draws between 25,000 and 30,000 spectators annually.
Kapsejladsen translates roughly to “competition voyage”, although the race itself is simple, and not very much like the epic voyage the name would indicate. 12 subjects take part (although the maths department are apparently notorious for getting themselves intentionally disqualified during the race). Each team is made up of 5 members, which must include both male and female participants.
Are you with me so far? Because this is where it starts to get a bit weird. Each team member must row in turn across the lake in a boat (usually inflatable), drink a bottle of beer, spin 10 times around the bottle and then jump back into their boat to row back across the lake and pass the baton to the next team member. If the beer hasn’t been completely emptied, or if it is spilled, the team member must drink a penalty beer before they can continue. The first team to have all 5 team members back on the shore where they started is the winner. There are several heats throughout the day, leading to a grand final, where the teams are competing, not only for honor but also for a bedpan that is painted gold. It’s interesting viewing to say the least.
While incredibly competitive, the people who get the loudest cheers from the crowd are quite often the ones who fell into the lake after spinning around a bit too fast. I’ve been told that Medicine are the usual champions, although Economics occasionally give them a run for their money. To quote my Danish next door neighbor, who is the source for a huge amount of my Kapsejladsen-based knowledge: “they even beat Sports Science every year, who knew that those nerds could row so well”. This year however, in a bit of a plot twist, Medicine didn’t even make it to the finals, and Psychology went on to win.
In case you somehow thought the racing itself was a bit tame, there are also team parades with costumes and some skits (the ones that I understood featured a reenactment of Leo Dicaprio/Kate Winslet fighting over a door in The Titanic, a tribute to Grease in a hovercraft boat and a dance-off between Trump and Kanye in giant paper mâché heads).
But lets not forget about the naked race. Danes aren’t too shy about nudity, at least when compared to the Brits, and naked races are apparently fairly common in Denmark, but I was not alone in the ranks of confused foreigners who thought it was some kind of unfortunate mistranslation until hoards of naked people literally ran past us. I don’t think I will ever get used to the sight of bouncing bums and boobs, but the Danes generally don’t seem to think it is weird to have people run around a park totally naked to prepare the crowd for a drunken boat race.
While some (slightly crazy) people arrived at the lake in the very early hours of the morning, or even camped overnight to get a prime spot, we settled for an 8am start. This worked out quite well for us, because as some of the aforementioned people got increasingly drunk and had to go home to their beds we managed to watch the final from the very front of the crowd on the edge of the lake. Despite being generally confused about what was going on (and about why so many people were in various states of undress), this was a really fun day that I certainly won’t be forgetting any time soon.
The sun came out for once, and we adorned ourselves in Danish flags to get the true cultural experience. Once they had discovered that I had never been to a Kapsejladsen before, plenty of tipsy Danes were very eager to try and explain why they thought it was the best spectator sport ever. There’s no point trying to tell a Dane that this isn’t a real sport. Sure, real sporting events don’t actually involve this much nudity or alcohol, but I have yet to find a Dane who will think that is an acceptable thing to say. So while I might still be pretty confused about the whole day, one thing is increasingly clear: in the eyes of the Danish, Kapsejladsen is not a party, it is a serious sport (although it certainly had me fooled).
Stay safe.
Sarah Middlemiss 