(All images courtesy of Andy Mettler and swiss-image)
The Appenzeller Powerchlaus team were the big winners in the 15th annual international Santa Claus World Championships (or ‘ClauWau’ for short) staged in the remote Swiss ski village of Samnaun on the final weekend of November. The Powerchlausers took home the 2,000 Swiss franc first prize which they’ll no doubt be investing in more presents for good boys and girls everywhere.
This year’s contest attracted the maximum-permitted 32 teams of four from around the world (although quite a few, including the ‘Young and hungry Norwegian Santas’ and the ‘Norwegian Viking Santas’ seemed to have come down from Scandinavia) competing for the coveted title of the best Santas. We’re not sure where the, ‘Three Santas and a Confused Troll’ team were from.
As every year, the 2015 Santa Claus World Championships saw teams do battle in a wide range of disciplines requiring skills that most good Santas should be able to master, as well as more unusual ones such as snowmobiling and karaoke.
Duty-free Samnaun stages the Santa Claus World Championships on the same weekend that Ischgl, across the border in Austria but linked to it by ski lifts and pistes, opens for its ski season too. Both events attract great media attention with Ischgl hosting a Beach boys concert, and highlight the fact that the ski regions are open earlier than most, for a five month season through to May 2016.
