…beard! Like many things having to do with the World Beard and Moustache Championships, the history of the event is shrouded in controversy. The Italian delegation claims that the first championships took place in Northern Italy in the early 1970′s, but today’s affair is directly traceable to an event organized in 1990 and hosted by the First Höfener Beard Club (1. Höfener Bartclub) in its hometown Höfen/Enz, Germany, a small village in the Black Forest. In 1995, the same club hosted the second World Beard and Moustache Championships in the nearby city of Pforzheim.
Since 1995, the championships have been held every two years. In 1997, the championships moved to Trondheim, Norway, where they were organized by the Norwegian Moustache Club (Den Norske Mustaschklubben), headquartered in Trondheim. The Swedish Moustache Club (Svenska Mustaschklubben) followed in 1999, organizing the championships in Ystad, at the extreme southern end of Sweden.
The championships returned to Germany in March, 2001, when the Swabian Beard and Moustache Club (Schwäbische Bart- und Schnauzerclub) celebrated its tenth anniversary by hosting the championships in its hometown of Schömberg.
In 2005, the worlds moved outside of Europe for the first time, to Carson City, Nevada. Approximately 85 Europeans showed their stuff to a crowd of enthused and amazed Americans along with the worldwide press. Berlin’s Karl-Heinz Hille was crowned grand champion and representatives of German beard clubs won 36 of the 57 trophies awarded.
The First Berliner Beard Club (1. Berliner Bartclub) hosted the 2005 WBMC. Germany continued its domination, taking fourteen of the seventeen first-place awards. German Elmar Weisser took first place in the full beard freestyle division with a hirsute rendition of the host city’s historic Brandenburg Gate.
In 2007 London’s world famous Handlebar Club played host to the championships in the seaside town of Brighton. The championships drew a sell out crowd while hundreds of facial-hair fans stood outside begging for tickets. This time Weisser’s beard commemorated London’s Tower Bridge. Upstart Beard Team USA took five first-place trophies but Germany continued its domination with nine golds in all.
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