A party tent that fills with a huge smoke fume and two hundred participants, mainly men, who quietly smoke a pipe. The Pipe Smoking World Cup will be held in Oirschot on Sunday, a competition for whoever keeps their pipe burning the longest.
“23 nationalities are participating in this ‘tobacco simmering’ competition,” says Cor Crans proudly. He is the chairman of the Dutch Federation of Pipe Smokers.
“We prefer to talk about simmering than about smoking, because that has such a negative connotation in the Netherlands. We do not want to promote smoking, but we do want to maintain the culture of pipe smoking.” Pipe smoking has been renamed an intangible cultural heritage ten years ago.
Participants from the United States, Lebanon, Japan and Poland have registered for the World Cup. They are mainly elderly men, but ten women and a group of students also participate. A young Swiss woman feels quite comfortable among all those older gentlemen. “Women are not yet integrated enough into the world of pipes, but pipe smokers’Since neat Leute.‘”
“It’s a kind of mental yoga. The quieter and calmer you are, the better it goes.”
The championship is serious business and is played according to strict rules. Every participant receives the same pipe and tobacco from the organization. They have five minutes to fill the pipe and then one minute to light it. Each participant only has two matches for this.
“It’s best to have a pinhead of fire,” one participant explains. “You have to smoke it as sparingly as possible. It is actually a kind of mental yoga. The quieter and calmer you are, the better it goes.” This is confirmed by a German participant. “It’s very relaxing to smoke a pipe.”
“Jeu has been abolished in our country. You are no longer allowed to smoke anywhere here, so I am not in good shape.”
It is certainly quiet in the tent after Mayor Keijzers of Oirschot gave the go-ahead. She acknowledges that a pipe smoking competition is somewhat at odds with the smoking ban. “We have approached the event as a tradition and this is a closed area. No public is allowed and we therefore stay within the rules.”
“The same smoking ban puts us at a disadvantage,” says a Dutch participant. “Jeu has been abolished in our country. You are no longer allowed to smoke anywhere here, so I am not in good shape.”
Whether it is due to the smoking ban or not, the title will indeed pass the Netherlands by this year. Elisabeth Dobbing from Austria becomes world champion. Her pipe burned for 1 hour 51 minutes and 11 seconds. As far as we know, it is the first time that a woman has won the world title.