--- title: Animal Athletes of the World description: In December Dubai is to hold its first Camel Marathon, which covers 31 miles and awards luxury prizes to winners. Camel racing is just one... canonical: https://time.com/4074554/animal-athletes-of-the-world/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-15T09:46:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:48:47.144Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Animal Athletes of the World og:description: In December Dubai is to hold its first Camel Marathon, which covers 31 miles and awards luxury prizes to winners. Camel racing is just one... og:url: https://time.com/4074554/animal-athletes-of-the-world/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Animal Athletes of the World twitter:description: In December Dubai is to hold its first Camel Marathon, which covers 31 miles and awards luxury prizes to winners. Camel racing is just one... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Animal Athletes of the World by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Oct 15, 2015 9:46 AM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Oct 15, 2015 9:46 AM UTC In December Dubai is to hold its first Camel Marathon, which covers 31 miles and awards luxury prizes to winners. Camel racing is just one of a variety of unusual animal sports: DOG SURFING Canines have competed on the breakers in Hawaii and California since the 1920s; points are given for ride length, wave size and confidence. SNAIL RACING Since the 1960s, the World Snail Racing Championships in the English village of Congham have drawn entrants from as far away as Hong Kong. PIG DIVING In rural China, pig diving has become a recent draw for tourists. The Piggy Kingdom Family Amusement Park in Zhejiang province has pigs jump off a 39-ft. platform, some 6 ft. higher than the tallest Olympic ones. –Naina Bajekal ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4074554/animal-athletes-of-the-world/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4074554/animal-athletes-of-the-world/"},"headline":"Animal Athletes of the World","datePublished":"2015-10-15T09:46:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:48:47.144Z","description":"In December Dubai is to hold its first Camel Marathon, which covers 31 miles and awards luxury prizes to winners. Camel racing is just one...","url":"https://time.com/4074554/animal-athletes-of-the-world/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4074554/animal-athletes-of-the-world/","name":"Animal Athletes of the World"}}]}] ```