{"id":197617,"date":"2026-09-05T20:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T20:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/197617\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T20:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T20:48:13","slug":"competitors-dig-deep-in-hungarian-grave-digging-contest-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/197617\/","title":{"rendered":"Competitors dig deep in Hungarian grave-digging contest \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

NYERGESUJFALU, Hungary (AP) \u2014 Like death itself, this was no joke.<\/p>\n

A grave-digging contest in a Hungarian cemetery may sound like the opening line of a comedy sketch. It proved to be anything but as 38 competitors grabbed picks and shovels on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators organizes the contest to showcase the grave-digging trade and its skills, and shake off death-related taboos.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn this photo provided by Lili Szandelszky, gravediggers compete in a contest, aimed at shaking off death-related taboos, in the public cemetery of Nyerges\u00fajfalu, Hungary, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026. (Lili Szandelszky via AP)<\/p>\n

The dry summer-baked soil in the public cemetery in Nyerges\u00fajfalu, northern Hungary, proved a worthy adversary for the 19 two-man teams. They huffed and puffed and sweated as they raced for the title of quickest-dug and most stylish grave.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeed is the main thing here, not the beauty,\u201d said R\u00f3bert Nagy, the victor with his teammate L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Kiss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have to dig a grave for a funeral, you have to be very careful about the exact dimensions and to make sure that it is beautifully carved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their winning time was 1 hour, 21 minutes, digging to contest specifications of graves 1.6 meters (5 1\/2 feet) deep, 2 meters (6 1\/2 feet) long and 0.8 meters (2.6 feet) wide.<\/p>\n

They shared a cash prize of 200,000 Hungarian forints (about $640).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NYERGESUJFALU, Hungary (AP) \u2014 Like death itself, this was no joke. A grave-digging contest in a Hungarian cemetery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-197617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}