The Chessboxing
A sport that mixes boxing and chess
When you think of boxing and chess, you'll agree that these two sports are not at all complementary. The first one requires physical strength and endurance. The other, rather, focuses on the player's cerebral capacity. And yet, one sport brings these two aspects together: Chessboxing.
The two players meet in the ring and begin a 3-minute "blitz" chess game. When the time is up, the players swap the chessboard for their gloves. They then play each other for 3 minutes. A round of chess follows, then boxing and so on until checkmate or a knockout occurs. They have a maximum of 11 rounds (6 chess and 5 boxing) to decide between them.
The "Chessboxers" take up the traditional codes of boxing. They are bare-chested and wear a protective helmet. They also wear noise-cancelling headphones so that they are not distracted by the clamor of the crowd. The games usually end in a "checkmate" rather than a big family knockout.
Created about 20 years ago, this relatively young sport enjoys a good popularity. In 2019, 11 Chessboxing federations and no less than 3,500 athletes are counted in the world.
A French sport straight out of a comic book
Before becoming a discipline, it is in the imagination of the French cartoonist of Serbian origin Enki Bilal that this hybrid sport was born. Published in 1992 by Casterman, "Froid Équateur" is the third part of the Nikopol trilogy. By creating this sport, Enki Bilal wanted to criticize a society obsessed with performance.
Ten years later, it was the Dutch artist Lepe Rubingh who made Enki Bilal's dream a reality. He created an international federation, the World Chess Boxing Organisation (WCBO) and organized his first fight.
In France, the first official fight took place in 2019, at the Cabaret Sauvage, in Paris. Know that a Frenchman, Thomas Cazeneuve, is double world champion in 2017 and 2019. A sport, which could be recognized as an Olympic discipline by 2028.
