Once upon a time, Greece was the home of sporting greatness – a place on which the world’s finest athletes would descend to run, grapple, then have their comically sized boners lovingly etched onto clay pots. Thankfully, I’m in town for no such capers; I’m here to watch a load of donkeys lumber grudgingly round a track.

The event is the Red Bull Donkey Cross – an utterly preposterous event that takes place on the island of Sifnos. The premise is simple: 19 Motorcross riders race donkeys round the island’s cobbled streets. After four laps, they jump off the donkeys and ride Motocross bikes around an obstacle-filled dirt track. Then after a few laps of that, they return to the donkeys and head for the finish line. Then everyone gets pissed.

Quite what the point of this nonsense is remains unclear, but that hardly matters. It’s 30°C, donkeys are dopily crashing into small children and hundreds of mad Greeks in silly hats are spontaneously spouting beards in excitement. It’s mental. At one point a particularly stupid donkey, called Colossus, or something unfittingly Gladiatorial, stops running, and the frantic whippings of the rider can do nothing to change that. Cue the arrival of a mad 65-year-old donkey herder, who runs a clear 50 yards down the street and delivers a mighty boot to the donkey’s arse. Sure enough, the donkey starts running and the herder swaggers back like a proud father who’s just mended a watch.

After three hours of donkey thwacking, bike-flipping and a lusty ass getting a roadside gelding, it’s all over. Someone has won, and everyone piles out to drink ouzo, eat cheese and pick our mothers up a nice souvenir – a ceramic, penis-adorned pot.