Frosty face-off: Over 120 teams throw down in epic Japanese snowball tournament

UONUMA, Niigata Prefecture –

More than 120 teams battled it out in a snowball fight tournament in a mountainous Japanese city on Sunday, in what the local weather bureau called the coldest air this winter to sweep the country’s northern snow belt.

The 35th annual Koide International Snowball Fight in Uonuma, Niigata Prefecture, roughly 180 km northwest of Tokyo, was the largest event of its kind in Japan, said 29-year-old head judge Takuya Kitsu.

Teams of five players competed in two-minute matches between two teams on a field the size of a tennis court, with points awarded for direct hits with a snowball.