In Novaria di Sicilia, a neighborhood of Messina, people play an unusual sport as part of the Carnival celebrations. It's called Lancio del Mairochino.
Traditional Sports explains that residents take a wheel of the local pecorino cheese and wrap it with a 3-meter long length of twine. Then they take turns hurling the cheese down the street, using the string as a sling. The goal is to reach the bottom of the hill with as few tosses as possible.
The sport dates back to the 1600s when cheesemakers practiced the sport as a way to test the hardness of a cheese and thus its readiness for consumption.
-via Massimo
