> Commercially available irons are used for ironing. In places where no electrical power supply is available or cannot be used due to humidity, the heating plate is heated by auxiliary constructions (mostly gas cookers). For the World Cup, for example, a process was developed in which the iron is heated inside by an exothermic reaction, generated by mixing a hygroscopic chemical pressed into granules with water.
"We took our own iron. It's not battery powered so it doesn't iron that well, but the quality of the ironing is not the point - it's where you do it."[1]
So it sounds like they just run a not-plugged-in regular iron over some fabric and call it ironing?
Conversely, I would question whether you can iron without a mountain backdrop. Really calls into question whether those crisp lines on your clothing are the result of true ironing or just pressing something hot against them.
Putting your trousers under the mattress and sleeping on them so that in the morning, they'll be flattened and de-wrinkled... because the lack of an iron anywhere on the base does not cancel the army regulations, and those say that the sentry must be impeccably dressed.
Indeed. In a competitive sport there should be a way to evaluate result to determine standings.
If ironing is just about extra bulk of equipment not the actual product of ironing, then it's more like weight-added competition. Otherwise there needs to be some way of judging the ironing aspect, like quality, novelty, or artistic merit, in addition to the otherwise difficulty, like in figure skating, for example.
But just for fun - everything is sport. In the line of "everything and the kitchen sink", how about extreme dish-washing!
Ironing clothes -- actually getting them flat -- on a mountain peak or underwater is interesting because of the difficulty. Finding out the person isn't really ironing, but just pretending, detracts from it and takes it from "that's quite an accomplishment" to "so what?". It goes from an interesting logistical challenge to "can you take an ironing board and an iron up the mountain / into the sea with you?"
> Commercially available irons are used for ironing. In places where no electrical power supply is available or cannot be used due to humidity, the heating plate is heated by auxiliary constructions (mostly gas cookers). For the World Cup, for example, a process was developed in which the iron is heated inside by an exothermic reaction, generated by mixing a hygroscopic chemical pressed into granules with water.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremb%C3%BCgeln