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Wok Racing
	Georg Hackl's four-person woksled during the Wok World Championship 2006 in Innsbruck
First played	2003
Characteristics
Team members	Teams of 1 or 4
Type	Winter sport, Time trial
Equipment	Wok
Venue	Bobsleigh tracks

Wok racing is a sport developed by the German TV host and entertainer Stefan Raab in which modified woks are used to make timed runs down an Olympic bobsleigh track. There are competitions for one-person woksleds and four-person woksleds, the latter using four woks per sled.

History

Wok racing was inspired by a bet in the German TV show Wetten, dass..?. In November 2003, the First official Wok World Championship was broadcast from Winterberg. The immediate success led to the second world championship in Innsbruck on March 4, 2004. Participants are mostly b-list celebrities like musical artists, actors, and TV hosts, but there are also known athletes that have ongoing professional careers in winter sports, like three-time Olympic luge champion Georg Hackl and the Jamaican Bobsled Team.

The third championship took place again in Winterberg on March 5, 2005. In contrast to the previous championships, there were two runs in which all contesters participated. The times of both runs were added. As a further innovation a qualifying round was created in which the participants had to jump from a trickski-jump with woks to determine the starting order. Further the sport event was professionalized.^{[citation needed]}

Equipment

Typical racing woks are usually directly imported from China. The only modifications are that the bottom is reinforced with an epoxy filling and heated with a blowlamp. Four-person woksleds consist of two pairs of woks, each of them is held together by a rounded frame. The two pairs are connected by a coupling. Due to the rather risky nature of the sport the participants wear heavy protective gear, usually similar to ice hockey equipment. To further reduce friction and the risk of injuries, the athletes wear ladles under their feet.^[1]

Advertising controversy

Public wok racing is only practiced once a year at The "World Wok Racing Championships" (German: Wok-WM, German pronunciation: [ˈvɔk.veːˌɛm], lit. Wok Worldcup) which is aired as special edition of Raab's show TV total on the German television channel ProSieben. The network used to declare these broadcasts as sporting events. Under German law that allowed the network to treat the massive corporate sponsorship of the event as incidental advertising which didn't count against Germany's strict rules regarding time limits for TV commercials. After a Berlin court ruling in 2009, however, the shows have to be labeled as an infomercial, since – unlike a regular sporting event – the races are explicitly staged for the TV broadcast, and there is strong evidence that the profits of the event sponsorship directly benefit the network.^[2]

World Wok Racing Championships

Venues

November 6, 2003: Winterberg
March 4, 2004: Innsbruck
March 5, 2005: Winterberg
March 11, 2006: Innsbruck
March 9, 2007: Innsbruck
March 8, 2008: Altenberg
March 7, 2009: Winterberg
March 19, 2010: Oberhof
March 12, 2011: Innsbruck
March 10, 2012: Königssee
March 2, 2013: Oberhof
March 8, 2014: Königssee
March 14, 2015: Innsbruck
November 12, 2022: Winterberg
November 11, 2023: Winterberg

Ranking

One-person Wok

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2003	Stefan Raab	Joey Kelly	Detlef Soost
2004	Georg Hackl	Joey Kelly	Stefan Raab
2005	Georg Hackl	Stefan Raab	Joey Kelly
2006	Joey Kelly	Georg Hackl	Stefan Raab
2007	Georg Hackl	Joey Kelly	Stefan Raab
2008	Georg Hackl	Christian Clerici	Joey Kelly
2009	Georg Hackl	Felix Loch	Joey Kelly
2010	Georg Hackl	Joey Kelly	Christian Clerici
2011	Georg Hackl	Felix Loch	Lucy Diakovska
2012	Georg Hackl	Lucy Diakovska	Joey Kelly
2013	Georg Hackl	Lucy Diakovska	Armin Zöggeler
2014	Joey Kelly	Georg Hackl	Armin Zöggeler
2015	Armin Zöggeler	Georg Hackl	Joey Kelly
2022	Joey Kelly	Lucas Cordalis	Jolina Mennen
2023	Joey Kelly	Armin Zöggeler	Sophia Thiel

Four-person Wok

Year	Team	Drivers
2003	Dick Brave and the Backbeats	Sascha Schmitz, Andre Tolba, Felix Wiegand, Martell Beigang
2004	ProSieben team	Ralf Zacherl, Stefan Gödde, Dominik Bachmair, Simon Gosejohann
2005	ProSieben team	Joey Kelly, Stefan Gödde, Charlotte Engelhardt, Lukas Hilbert
2006	Fisherman's Friend team	Sandra Kiriasis, Christoph Langen, Silke Kraushaar, Susi Erdmann
2007	SEAT team	Sven Hannawald, Susi Kentikian, Christina Surer, Markus Beyer
2008	Frosta-team	Christoph Langen, Susi Erdmann, Silke Kraushaar, Felix Loch
2009	TV total team	Stefan Raab, André Lange, Axel Stein, Björn Dunkerbeck
2010	TV total team	Stefan Raab, André Lange, Axel Stein, Björn Dunkerbeck
2011	Babybel team	Sandra Kiriasis, Tatjana Hüfner, Manuel Machata, Christoph Langen
2012	TV total team	Stefan Raab, Felix Loch, Manuel Machata, Tim Lobinger
2013	TV total team	Stefan Raab, Felix Loch, Manuel Machata, Steffen Henssler
2014	Otelo team	Seldwyn Morgan, Hanukkah Wallace, Marvin Dixon, Wayne Blackwood
2015	Europa Versicherungen/Austria team	Markus Prock, Ulrike Kriegler, Marc Pircher, Janine Flock
2022	Chocomel/Germany team 3	Johannes Ludwig, Felix von Jascheroff, Francesco Friedrich, Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle
2023	Zoll-Karriere/Germany team 2	Sven Hannawald, Thore Schölermann, Pascal Hens, Thorsten Legat

Records

Speed records

One-Person-Wok
Place	Speed in km/h	Holder	Year
Innsbruck	91.70	Georg Hackl	2007
Altenberg	81.80		2008
Winterberg	105.40		2009
Oberhof	69.40		2010
Königsee	88.20		2012

Four-Person-Wok
Place	Speed in km/h	Holder	Year
Winterberg	114.3	Elton & Friends	2009
Innsbruck	97.00	FROSTA	2006

Course Records

One-Person-Wok
Place	Time in seconds	Holder	Year
Winterberg	47.621	Georg Hackl	2005
Innsbruck	54.840	Georg Hackl	2007

Four-Person-Wok
Place	Time in seconds	Holder	Year
Winterberg	57.117	TV total	2005
Innsbruck	52.527	Fisherman's Friend	2006

References

^ "Wok Racing Causes Stir in Germany". www.wsj.com. p. 1:23. Retrieved 2021-08-27.
^ "Gerichtsurteil: Schleichwerbung bei Stefan Raabs "Wok WM" - Nachrichten Fernsehen - WELT ONLINE". Die Welt. December 12, 2008. Retrieved April 1, 2012.

"Raabs WM-Show: Wenn Calli in den Wok gewuchtet wird - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Kultur". Der Spiegel. March 9, 2008. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
"Wok-WM: Kugelblitz Ailton strandet im Eiskanal - Nachrichten Fernsehen - WELT ONLINE". Die Welt. March 3, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012.