Sweden crowns horseshoe champions

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EMMABODA, Sweden, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Lisbeth Nygaard-Karlsson of Tingsryd and Jabir Malghouth of Vaxjo are Sweden's new horseshoe-pitching champions, having bested 107 competitors, organizers say.

Nygaard-Karlsson won the gold in the women's division and Malghouth took the men's top spot Saturday in Emmaboda, the Swedish news agency TT reported.

While horseshoe pitching has been around for a couple of thousand years, it only came to Sweden in 1993, TT says, when a man named P.O. Hansson and three friends introduced it after seeing a tournament in Poland. A couple of dozen teams were formed and the first national championships were held in 1994, TT said.

In 1996, a Swede, Kalle "The Knife" Gyllenfjell made it into the Guinness Book of World Records by tossing 825 horseshoes in 8 minutes and 15 seconds, hitting the stake 528 times.

In Sweden, competitors throw the horseshoes from a distance of 6 meters (about 20 feet) from the stake, TT said. Rules of the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association in the United States call for the stakes to be 40 feet apart.