By Phil Williams
If you’ve ever jumped out of a plane and realised with horror that your shirt was slightly creased, then you’ll probably wish you’d heard of Extreme Ironing sooner. It’s been over a decade since its inception in 1997, when founder Phil “Steam” Shaw of Leicester, UK, regretted not being able to go climbing and iron his shirts after work; today, combining these activities is an international pastime.

According to Steam, Extreme Ironing “combines the thrills of an extreme sport with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.” With participants ironing at the peak of a forbidding precipice, whilst jumping off a cliff or even underwater, hazardous crease-removal has endless possibilities. Steam’s UK-based Extreme Ironing Bureau has taken the lead in this absurd sport, with a comprehensive website and multiple international tours under their belt.  However, the eccentric Brits are not alone in their enthusiasm.

A German team, German Extreme Ironing Section, set up the first Extreme Ironing World Championships in 2002 near Munich, where ten nations fought for prizes including appropriate household goods and a holiday in Hawaii. Meanwhile EIB frequently run photography competitions for contributors from all over the world. Past champions include a physician from South Africa, who  took the prize in the 2003 competition for his ironing on a rope above a 100-ft gorge.

As a sport where everyone wants to claim records, the EIB now try to regulate them with rules involving board and garment sizes. Records set include altitude - with ironers climbing up Kilimajaro and Everest - and maximum numbers ironing underwater, currently claimed by a 72-strong Australian team.

Underwater ironing may sound intensely impractical, but try telling that to British diver Louise Trewavas: she’ll explain that the sport is for those who don’t take their extreme sports too seriously. Trewavas holds the record for the deepest ironing, done with a re-breather at 450 feet underwater in the Blue Hole near Dahab, Egypt. Considering the risks of diving 450-foot at the best of times, you have to give these sportspeople respect for their dedication to a joke.

Though the World Championships are far from a regular event (6 years on, we’re yet to see a second one), and the time of books and DVDs on the subject, like Ironing Under the Sky, may have passed, ironing enthusiasts still continue to fill the internet with pictures of their achievements. Groups continue to emerge across the world, from New Zealand to Colorado to Chile. Last year even saw Henry Cookson, a member of the Team n2i exhibition, ironing at the Point of Inaccessibility, Antarctica. He trekked for 49 days over 1100 miles to perform what must be the most remote and unnecessary household chore in history. The stakes are rising; who knows where extreme ironing will appear next?

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