Scott Martin

Did you know there’s a sport called chess boxing?

Me neither, till I read a blurb about it in Wired magazine. It alternates 3-minute rounds of boxing with 4 minutes of chess for 11 rounds or until somebody scores a knockout or checkmate. The first match took place in 2003 in Amsterdam, and the hybrid sport caught on quickly in Europe. Now even Los Angeles has a chess-boxing club.

I suppose the attraction lies in mastering what seem like diametrically opposed disciplines: brains vs. brawn, mental agility vs. physical fitness, exploiting the Rimsky-Korsakov Gambit vs. spitting your teeth into a bucket.

With cycling at a drug-infested crossroads, clearly it’s time for our sport to move in a similar direction. The question is: Which activity should we partner with to form a new megasport that will sweep the globe -- or at least get us on SportsCenter?

Bike racing is often referred to as “2-wheeled chess,” but I see several problems with this combo: 1) chess is already taken; 2) running over an errant knight could cause a flat tire; and 3) you’d probably slip when standing up from the chess board while wearing cleats.

We need to think outside the boxing. Maybe cycling and Ping-Pong. With its emphasis on hand-eye coordination and quick bursts of lateral movement, table tennis is everything cycling is not. Plus, the first world champion would probably be RBR tech titan Jim Langley, who when not riding his bike can be found playing national table tennis tournaments, attending table tennis camp or practicing at home with his table tennis robot.

The only problem is a name for our new sport. Bike Pong? Catchy, but sounds too much like Beer Pong. Any ideas?

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