Translation: Tegoshi In germany

Hello :D
For those who are interested:
I did a translation of the article posted bycarey_chan .
It's not beta-ed because I did it at work. If you find flaws, keep them. xD

Crazy, they are, the Lausitzer

The Japanese TV-star Miyagawa Daisuke keeps his balance on the board over the see-saw.
Just some seconds later he falls into the pond, which was previously freed from ice.

Ossak -- a fearful glance at the ice cold water, one deep breath, then Miyagawa Daisuke gets on his bike's saddle.  Snowflakes are swirling around him, the thermometer shows -8°C. The Japanese knows: There is no going back now. The 38 year old traveled 9000 km to conquer the 63 meter wide  pond from Ossak with the bicycle -- a bath in the ice-water taken in to account.

What Daisuke does in the little Lausitzer's village near Munchhausen (Elbe-Elster) is not some kind of self-finding-trip, but stuff for an extremely popular show of the private TV-broadcaster Nippon TV. In the east-Asia country Daisuke is known as TV-comedian. Together with two other Japanese celebrities he had to enter a contest in Ossak. For that purpose the broadcaster  sent out a team of 13 people into the 124-souls-village -- and with that got the dozy place excited for weeks.

To the end of the world.

As crazy as possible, as far away from their  home country as possible is the motto of the show: "Sekai no hate made itte Q". Translated it means as much as "Travel to the end of the world to answer our questions." In the current episode the candidates were supposed to show curious/unusual traditions of different countries, explains Paola Bruno, coordinator of the film team.
But why Ossak? The village has a tradition in competition for over 60 years: the pond-driving. Dressed as if it was carneval the candidates drive with their bikes over a 15 cm narrow boardwalk, partly above, partly short under the surface of the pond. Extra obstacles: A see-saw and a turn. At the latest then, a lot lose their balance and fall into the water.

About the spectacle, which actually takes place shortly after Whitsunday and which attracts 2000 curious on-looker, the Japanese found out via internet. The interpreter of the team called the club of pond-driver on November 11th.  "At first we thought it was a carnival-joke", tells club-chief Lutz Rothe. Pond-driving with snow and ice -- that hs never happened before. The Ossaker thought the idea was crazy but possible. And of course they didn't even want to watch, so they set up their own team against the guests of the Far East. The preparations were running for days, the whole village took part in them. The fire department freed the pond, which had been frozen for days off ice, then they got the boards from the winter storage.

"It's really a bit crazy", says the 8 year old Marek Rygus, as one of the Japanese stars runs past him towards the pond. The 3rd grader got a day off from school, some of the audience even took a day off from work. With hot spiced wine and bratwurst the Ossaker enjoy the winter contest, which in fact breaks their tradition, but is especially funny because of the constant drops into icy water.

That Daisuke can't hold himself on the bike all that long at the first try, is quite volitional. Meticulous the camera team captures his drop into the water. The cold shock despite wetsuit is so huge that he jumps out of the water as if stung by an adder. Determined he runs to the waterside which promisses rescue: The actors bring their body temperature in a bathtub with hot water back to normal. Daisuke lies in the tub, stiff and whines and whines. After a short break he gets asked: "Another round?" Daisuke looks shocked at first, then he says: "Of course". 6 from 26 of the starts don't end in water. Successful as "Wetten, dass...?"? ( A German show about bets)

In Ossak there are 200 people watching this time. In Japan there will be around 12 million viewer, who will switch on on January 2nd , when the show will air at Nippon TV as a part of a 3 hour long New Years special, the Japanese tell. From toddler  to grandmother -- the show has dream ratings like ZDF-classic "Wetten, dass...?"
The audience celebrates the youngest pond-driver as the winner of the Japanese trio: Tegoshi Yuya (23), singer of the boy-group "News".  In the overall standings he he got as his debut at least place 3 behind the Ossaker Micheal Lehmann and Marcel Matuschka.

By the way the Japanese filmed the intro in Berlin -- as proof that Ossak is really located in Germany.

Newspaper Berlin, 03.12.2010 by Sebastian Höhn

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/berlin/321475/321476.php

edit: more pics: http://www.lr-online.de/mediacenter/bilder/bilddetail/cme154820,1837300.html

thanks sayu_nz