• September 23, 1985
• Vol. 23
• No. 13

Yet Another Reason Why the Sun Never Sets on the British Empire: Dwarf-Throwing Contests

If Lenny the Giant, a British dwarf, ever had a stiff upper lip, he doesn't have it anymore. For the past several months he has encouraged large people to throw him long distances, face first. This ingenious but controversial activity, appropriately named "dwarf-throwing," reached its zenith in the British Isles last week when Jimmy Leonard, a truck driver and bouncer, heaved Lenny across 11 feet, five inches of the Worcester public house in Sutton to capture the all-important British Dwarf-Throwing Championships.

Almost anyone can hold a dwarf-throwing contest, providing he has an agreeable dwarf—and Lenny is that. When not orbiting barrooms, he appears with his comedy group, the Oddballs, often doing a skit in which a woman is called from the audience to change the diaper of an oversize dummy baby. At the last moment, Lenny substitutes. One can only imagine the fun.

Sometimes Lenny, 29, longs for a higher calling. That's when he straps on harness, crash helmet and knee and elbow pads. Contestants grab the harness, swing him three times and heave him onto a pile of mattresses.

Nobody expects too much out of an airborne dwarf—the aerodynamics are terrible—but the throw that won the British championship was positively Lilliputian. In Australia, where dwarf-throwing is said to have originated, a record heave of 30 feet has been claimed, although participating dwarfs might be smaller than the 4'4", 98-pound Lenny. Says Lenny, rising to the defense of Britannia, "I think they must have been throwing inflatable dolls."

Dwarf-throwing is not without its detractors. Jack Ashley, a Labor member of Parliament, called the championships "extremely degrading to all concerned." Replies Lenny, "I used to work on an assembly line at an electronics factory—that's where I really felt degraded."