Hairy task faces judges in world beard and moustache contest
Luke Harding in Berlin
Saturday October 1, 2005
The Guardian
There were men with Fu Manchu moustaches. There were contestants with long flowing Gandalf beards. And there was the reigning world champion: German Karl-Heinz Hille, whose gravity-defying sideburns look a bit like an upturned bucket.
Some 220 contestants from all over the world gathered in Berlin yesterday ahead of today's biannual world beard and moustache championships. The participants, including eight from Britain, will do battle in several different moustache and beard categories this afternoon, including musketeer, wild west, imperial Austrian, English, Dali and freestyle.
"The beard has to be well looked-after and, of course, it has to suit the person who is wearing it," Jürgen Draheim, the deputy president of Berlin's beard club, and the reigning European champion, explained yesterday. "We have a lot of entries in the full beard category.
"People who grow beards come from all walks of society," he added. "We have simple workers and we have academics. I started growing mine as a revolt against my parents. My mother still tells me to shave it off."
Contestants are allowed to use artificial gels and hair sprays, except in the natural moustache category, Mr Draheim said. Several entrants in the freestyle section had turned up supporting Christmas tree beards, he said.
But had the war on terrorism made life more difficult for bearded people? "I don't think so," he said. "But the whole point of a beard is to make you stand out from the crowd."
About 40 American and British contestants went on a tour of the German capital yesterday ahead of the championships, which are being held at a lakeside hotel. They had previously spent a week at Munich's Oktoberfest beer festival.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1582425,00.html
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