Close really counts in horseshoes and jukskei

There are some interesting sights at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena these days.

Instead of ice, you have clay on the floor. Instead of flying pucks, you have flying horseshoes. Instead of blaring hard rock music coming out of the PA system, you have easy listening Big Band music.

OK, we're kidding about the last difference, even if the demographics of those watching the World Horseshoe Pitching Championships are grayer than those of the fans who usually follow the RoughRiders.

Still, the most interesting sight during the horseshoe competition, which is camped out at the arena until Aug. 7, is from a group of green and gold-garbed men and women and the strange sport they are playing outside the main entrance.

It's called jukskei and, to a novice, it looks as hard to play as to say. Pronounced yuk-skay, this distant cousin of horseshoes is believed to have originated around 1743 in South Africa. It was developed by “transport riders,” who traveled with ox-drawn wagons, and used the wooden pins of the oxen yokes to throw at a stick planted in the ground.

It did not become an organized sport until 1939 when the first unions were formed and rules formalized. Today, more than 20,000 people in South Africa spend time trying to knock over that peg planted in a sandpit or trying to get closest to the peg.

Thirteen members of the touring delegation of the International Jukskei Federation of South Africa are here, talking up their sport and giving exhibitions. While similar to horseshoes in some ways, it's very dissimilar in others, starting with the wooden pin (or skei) that looks like a one-armed roller pin and weighs 4 pounds.

“The action, the hand to eye coordination, the momentum are exactly the same as horseshoes,” said Melanie Jacobs, the team coach of the touring group whose  husband, Gerrie, is president of the federation.

 The differences were easily noticeable watching Jacobs and others play the sport on Friday afternoon, from the scoring and strategies to the four-person teams to the banter going on among the contestants.

“When we're competing, it's like a funeral parlor. There is no talking,” said Gary Roberts, who's the fifth-ranked player in the Open Men's competition and one of the people responsible for hooking up the jukskei and horseshoe folks. “These guys are talking a lot. They encourage each other.”

Those conversations will take on a more serious tone on Aug. 4 when Gerrie Jacobs heads to Chicago to find out what it would take for jukskei and horseshoes to become members of the International Confederation of Precision Throwing Sports. In case you're wondering, bocce ball and lawn bowling are two of the current members.

“It's a family oriented game and there are thousands of juniors playing,” Gerrie Jacobs said.

Acknowledging his nation's history of apartheid, Jacobs, a professor at the University of Johannesburg, said there once was a stigma for blacks to play the sport popularized by Afrikaners. That changed in 1995, he said, when “there was a purposeful strive'' to knock down that barrier. Jacobs said there are now about 13,000 blacks playing jukskei, or more than half the participants.

 Jacobs said things are very positive on the sporting front in South Africa these days with the nation still glowing from the recent World Cup. “We want to extend our international affiliations. This is the right sport at the right time.”

Most of Friday's onlookers were fascinated with jukskei and some even gave it a try. If you want to see actual competition, there will be matches Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. between the South Africans and a contingent of Americans, led by Roberts. Despite his skill at horseshoes, Roberts, who hails from Beaver, Ohio, knows the odds are stacked against him, especially since one of his opponents is the greatest jukskei player in South African history, Willie “The Goose” Goosen.

“It would take years to get to their level,” Roberts said.

One horseshoe player getting an early start with jukskei was Dayton Campbell, 10, of Spotsylvania, Va. But he was clear about his preference.

“It's pretty fun,” Campbell  said, “But I like horseshoes better. That's because I'm better at horseshoes.”