UnNews:Spanish baby-jumping festival leads to twisted ankle
|
This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
24 June 2014
El Salto del Colacho, an annual festival held in Southern Spain in which participants dressed as devils jump over newborn babies, has ended in tragedy today, as one participant twisted his ankle.
José María Mataniños, 28, has been a baby-jumper for 3 years, and estimates that he has jumped over 100 babies - "and other things in training - we train with kittens and puppies, maybe I have jumped over 1000 things in total.
"Animals are easier to come by, although my mentor put his back out stepping on a puppy."
Yesterday, proceedings were going well when a baby in la tercera - the third row of babies - fatefully raised his head at the worse possible moment, making Mataniños' landing very uncomfortable, and almost causing the maestro to slip.
"This is part of our culture," Mataniños told UnNews, "We have been doing this since 1620, and not one baby-jumper has been seriously injured.
"To an outsider, it might sound morbid, but it's part of the thrill for the spectator - when the baby jumper lands on a baby, will he fall over? Like any sportsman, you just have to take the rough with the smooth."
In the 1990s, the sport struggled as mothers refused to allow their babies to participate for fear of hurting the baby jumpers' ankles. However, since Spain's restriction of abortion laws in 2014, baby numbers have reached record highs.
Sources[edit | edit source]
- Leverage, "The baby jumping festival – in pictures" Guardian, 24 June 2014