Monday, October 3, 2005

Chess Boxing

This has been all over German TV news this weekend; the first European Chess Boxing Championship took place on October 1st (see German Chessgate for a picture of “Schachboxen”). Chess boxing is just what it sounds like. Two people get together in a ring, play some chess (two minutes), put on their boxing gloves (one minute), then punch each other in the face (two minutes), then play some more chess... and so on, for eleven rounds.

Iepe Rubingh (age 31) is inventor of this sport and current world champion. According to the German Die Zeit, he’s interested in the symbiosis of brain & muscle, body & soul, sport & arts. He was inspired by a comic book he read as kid. It was Enki Bilal’s Froid Équateur (the image above is taken from this comic) and depicted the combination of chess and boxing. If it ever will become an Olympic discipline, Iepe says, it would become “the king of disciplines.”

Chess Boxing by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (6)

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