{"id":809,"date":"2025-05-28T11:10:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T10:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/defiancemagazine.co.uk\/?p=809"},"modified":"2025-06-06T12:02:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T11:02:58","slug":"how-world-chase-tag-turned-a-childhood-game-into-a-global-competitive-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jusmedia.co.uk\/defiancemag\/2025\/05\/28\/how-world-chase-tag-turned-a-childhood-game-into-a-global-competitive-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"How World Chase Tag Turned a Childhood Game Into a Global Competitive Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whether you\u2019re a kid begging your parents to play for five more minutes, battling it out with your friends on the playground at school, or being forced into looking after a kid at the family function, we\u2019ve spent hours playing the game that famously has no winner – but now it does. Here are the world\u2019s best tag players explaining why their sport is catching on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, a game of tag between father and son in their garden got them thinking. Why is this not a real sport? And so it began. The beginning of a 14-year journey that would end in global expansion, ESPN TV deals, and a regulated, structured competitive sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The premise and rules, although obviously more complicated than tag in its original form, are fairly simple. Chase Tag is played in a square arena called a quad, which has obstacles and barriers. Matches are between two teams of six athletes who compete in several one-on-one pursuits, where the \u2018chaser\u2019 has just twenty seconds to tag the \u2018evader.\u2019 Whoever wins the duel stays on as the next evader, and the match is best of 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christian Devaux, the founder and CEO of World Chase Tag, 55, says, \u201cMe and my son came up with the idea. We played a lot of tag in the garden. My son wanted to play it everywhere we went. As he got older, we started using more obstacles, and he started to think that he was better than me, so we came up with a way to monitor who won. We started using a timer and a referee. We both started realising that this would be really cool if real athletes started doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pair set up a group in London and played using barrier tape around trees and obstacles around Hyde Park. When winter hit, they started renting gyms, designing courses, and holding proper events. By the beginning of 2016, the sport had gone viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An Urban Corp Nano player successfully evading a tag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur first two videos went viral with almost two million views. It just took off from there,\u201d says Christian. \u201cWe saw the potential. We had proper parkour athletes taking place, so we knew it would be a good watch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of these parkour athletes was Greg Ball, who joined after Christian and his brother, Damian, spoke to him about a new sport they were testing. Ball, and his team, Marrero Gang, won the first three World Chase Tag championships in 2016, 2017, and 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt started as a bit of fun. It was a side quest,\u201d Marrero Gang\u2019s former team captain, Ball, says. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would blow up like it did. It\u2019s been a strange journey from not believing it would go anywhere to believing it\u2019s going to be the biggest thing in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe managed to win the first three chase tag competitions back-to-back, which gave us a legacy. I like to think it makes us pioneers of the sport. There were a few teams at the start, which made Chase Tag possible. It was when the French and the States came in that the sport began to be international, and it took off, but I would call myself and my team pioneers in the sport, and I would say we were one of the main driving influences of those first few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe committed our lives to doing Chase Tag at that point. If we didn\u2019t do that, then we wouldn\u2019t have developed the rivalries and the competition needed to drive the sport into what it is today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Chase Tag is now international, with gyms all over the world, including in Japan, China, India, Israel, South Korea, and Mexico. These gyms are permitted to use the World Chase Tag rules and branding, allowing the movement to spread all over the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChase tag was hardly even a thing when I joined,\u201d says Ball, who is also a previous finalist of the British TV show Ninja Warrior. \u201cIt was just a bunch of scaffolding. Now we\u2019re having world competitions with teams from Brazil, Japan, and China, and it has honestly been insane to see the growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky enough to still participate by commentating. I get to go to these worldwide events knowing that at the first one there were literally 40 people watching in a small warehouse. Now, we are selling out stadiums. It\u2019s mind-blowing to see how far it has come along.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ball was the first ever Knight of Flight, awarded to the best player at every tournament, which he also believes solidified his name in the hall of fame for World Chase Tag, along with some of the incredible athletes who are competing now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Urban Corp Nano celebrating winning the 2024 Women’s World Championship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When asked why Chase Tag had had such a rapid rise to fame, Christian Devaux says, \u201cSome sports are entertaining to watch, some are entertaining to play. Everyone has played tag, but it\u2019s also so entertaining to watch. It\u2019s easy to understand, and you immediately know what\u2019s going on. There\u2019s skill and strategy in our sport, but it\u2019s still simple to follow. That\u2019s our superpower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a universal concept around the world. There is no association with a particular nation. It\u2019s not an American sport or a Commonwealth sport. It\u2019s tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDana White from UFC says if you were in the corner of the street watching people play football and basketball and a fight breaks out, everyone would stop watching and watch the fight. I would take that and say, If, during the fight, two people legged it past the fight chasing each other like their lives depended on it, everyone would start watching that instead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about other niche and quirky sports here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n