Introducing the world's most unlikely sport: chessboxing

[Trey Brister]

Introducing the world's most unlikely sport: chessboxing

Take one comic book concept and several willing participants and you've got yourself the most unlikely sporting union since Andre Agassi and Barbra Streisand, says Georgina Turner. And what's more, it's catching on

Monday October 31, 2005

Klitschkos playing chess
The Klitschko brothers playing chess

Chess players are the gangly, slightly fey, sunken-eyed boys who spent lunchtimes honing their queen's gambit while their classmates kicked each other around the playground. They sport sideswept fringes and thick-rimmed spectacles that comically steam up the moment a woman walks within 300 feet. Or so we thought, until we heard about chessboxing, sport's strangest combination since Andre Agassi and Barbra Streisand were rubbing noses.

The brainchild of Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh, chessboxers alternate between board and ring, engaging both brains and brawn through 11 rounds (four minutes' chess, two minutes' boxing), to see who comes out on top. Contests are won by checkmate, knock-out, retirement, exceeding the time limit at the board or a refereeing decision. If the chess game ends in stalemate, the highest scorer in the boxing rounds wins. Ties are won, for no apparent reason, by the player with the black pieces.

Article continues
On first inspection, there are probably no two sports that are more ill-matched: one minute you're having your skull battered, the next you're sat down trying to work out why you appear to have 48 pawns, let alone what to do with them. Wrong again, apparently.

"The combination is just fascinating," says German fighter Andreas Dilschneider. "There are parallels. Both are about giving and taking, reacting to the move your opponent just made, whether they've thrown a punch or moved a piece.

"You always have to think about the end goal, what you want to do." The World Chess Boxing Organisation (WCBO) highlights this philosophy in its motto: 'Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board'.

Sound like comic book stuff? It is. Rubinghe took the idea from Enki Bilal comic Froid-Équator, set in 2096 and which sees inhabitants of a ravaged planet competing in various games, among which chessboxing features. Dilschneider, or 'D', as he's known in the sport, helped Rubinghe develop the idea after meeting him at a party three years ago. After three years devoted to promoting the sport, he became a fighter seven months ago, competing in the WCBO's first European Championship earlier this month. He lost to Bulgarian Tihomir 'Tigertad' Titschko in the ninth round.

"It was a great challenge, fantastic," he says. "He was a very hard opponent, among the world's best chess players. I knew my best chance was in the boxing, but his routine in the chess was just too good.

"I couldn't be sad though, it was great. There were five or six hundred people there all yelling."

Yes, not only does this sport exist, but it's attracting increasing attention, with another European showdown in Cologne set for February.

"After the European Championships, hits on our website, www.wcbo.org went from about 200 per day to 2,000 per day, so you can see the reaction. Unfortunately if people are not in Berlin [where the first Chess Boxing Club has been established] they do not really have the opportunity to get involved," says D. "But that's something we're working on."

Interest has come from all quarters, but Dilschneider and Rubinghe have to be selective about who trains.

"It's a very difficult sport," explains Rubinghe, "because you come out of the boxing with a very high pulse and adrenaline levels, so you need to have an excellent physical condition to get those levels down and be able to play chess."

That said, they're determined to develop chessboxing, and hope to make it a part of the 2016 Olympics. "Every sport has Olympic ambitions," shrugs Dilschneider, "and we're no exception.

"But we're just beginning. We need to make sure we have two, three, four five events a year to help establish chessboxing less as an art form, or concept, and more as a sport.

"When triathlons first came about in the 1970s, people thought it was crazy that someone would run 10km, then jump into the water and start swimming," he adds. "But now that's a normal, famous sport."

And the sport could land a whole heap of credibility if rumours that Vitali Klitschko and Lennox Lewis are interested turn out to be true. "We would love that to be the case," enthuses Dilschneider. "We have been trying to get hold of the Klitschkos for a year and a half, because they are also great chess players, but we have not been able to. If they wanted to do it, we would love it. But it is maybe just internet gossip."

Whatever the truth, chessboxing has certainly got people talking. What started as an art show is drawing in the bold and the curious alike, and its founders are determined to make a success of it. "Chessboxing has no limits," says Dilschneider. "It breaks down barriers. We're working on a chessboxing revolution worldwide. Anything is possible." It's fighting talk all right.

[Sweet Imperfection]

kinda fascinating actually (either that or really dumb....I can't decide) lol