Outside Edge (11/07/10)

Just when the country needed a pick-me-up... Kyle Kane has set a world record for lifting a dead weight at the age of 12. The Coventry schoolboy lifted 22st (308lb) – he only weighs 10st 7lb – crushing the previous best of 236lb set by Kirby Winson in Minnesota. Kyle's father John was a professional bodybuilder but Kyle says: "People may think I've been pushed into weightlifting. I wouldn't do anything I didn't want to do." And you wouldn't argue with him. Meanwhile Ena Mallet, a lollipop lady in South Walsham, Norfolk, has become the first woman to win a seventh dan black belt in international spirit combat jujitsu at the grand old age of 77. You might want to cross the road to avoid her.

17

Percentage of injuries sustained by parents on sports days which are caused by three-legged races; a further 15 per cent are sustained in sack races. Half of all physios have to treat adults. The school run has never been so dangerous.

Bun fight of the week

Don't scoff but there are rumbles in the world of extreme eating. As Joey "Jaws" Chestnut cruised to a fourth win in a row in the hot dog-eating contest at New York's Coney Island (54 in 10 minutes, since you ask), six-time champion Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi of Japan was led from the stage in handcuffs after protesting about his contract with Major League Eating. He wants to take part in contests beyond their jurisdiction. Now that's just greedy. Elsewhere in the world of extreme eating, porn star Bobbi Eden promised to give oral sex to all her Twitter followers (over 100,000 and counting) if Holland win the World Cup. And you thought there was too much horn-blowing.

Good week for

Lebron James, the NBA's Most Valuable Player for the last two seasons, signs for Miami Heat in a deal worth $110 million... Lake Killamperpunna, in the Queensland outback in Australia, will hold a yachting regatta for the first time in 21 years following heavy rain... and Rye Golf Club in Sussex was left £441,536 in the will of former member Peter Smith after he died aged 90.

Bad week for

Wayne Rooney, voted the ugliest player at the World Cup by the dating agency BeautifulPeople.com... NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, will not show the Nagoya Grand Sumo event live for the first time in 57 years after allegations of betting and consorting with gangsters... and Colombian drug smugglers, whose plan to smuggle 11kg of cocaine out of the country disguised as the World Cup was foiled by customs.

Family spat of the week

From eating to extreme expectorating: Rick "Pellet Gun" Krause, 56, won the Cherry Pit Spitting Championships in Eau Claire, Michigan, for the 16th time with a distance of 51ft 3in, while his wife "Machine Gun" Marlene won her seventh title. You wouldn't exactly salivate at the prospect of being asked round to dinner. Rick may be losing his gift of the gob – he set a world record of 93ft 61/2in in 2003 – but life is still a bowl of cherries for his son Brian, who was runner-up this year. Far more sensibly the World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling Championships are being held today in Llanwrtyd Wells. The tiny Welsh town also hosts a Man Vs Horse Race, so it's clearly not just a bog standard place.

a.tong@independent.co.uk