Kielda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. A group of concussion researchers have likened run It Straight events to dwarf tossing, where organizers turn real human risk and harm into a spectacle. There are growing calls to ban these events, where two people run head to head at each other before making body jarring contact. These sporting spectacles have gained popularity in recent times, with competitors promised thousands of dollars
for winning. The social media driven craze made international headlines earlier this year when nineteen year old Ryan Sattathwaite died after suffering head injuries in an impromptu contest with friends. Today on the Front Page ends at Harald, reporter Neil readers with us to take us through the latest on the world's newest full contact competition. First off, Neil, let's start with an easy one. What is Run It Straight?
Run It Straight? Head It's beginnings in America is a practice move used by NFL teams, Basically running backs running into defenders, improving both defensive skills and running skills, trying to bust the tackle from there, and it ended up actually being banned in America by the NFL basically for safety concerns, and in the meantime it's become sort of somewhat of a social media sensation on both sides of
the Tasman. The version of running straight that we have in New Zealand and Australia is two people running for about thirty meters away from each other. One person's got a ball. The other person's job is to either smash that the ball carrier as hard as they can.
I wasn't even aware that there was a ball involved. I mean, I've seen some of these videos. They're pretty terrifying and people end up convulsing on the floor in some instances.
Yeah, during some of the organized events and Allkland earlier this year that the hero went with a reporter and a videographer and there were a couple of people that were not cold. There was another person that was lying on the ground convulsing. So that's quite a telltale sign of a concussion impact, exceptely not for the faint heart.
And I think part of the issue with the health bodies that have called for it to be banned is it's okay for some of these big hits to be had on a rugby field or a rugby league field, but these are actually athletes that are trained to handle those hits as safely as possible in the background as well,
both rugby and leap. In our part of the world that the laws have changed where you know, you can't hit someone above the shoulder line and people can still get cancuss not just being in the head, but she tackled around the chest or the shoulders. Concussions caused by the size of impact, not necessarily where the impacts made.
Tell me about this research paper.
Yes, there's a group called the Repercussion Group. They're made up of academics, concussion experts, concussion researchers and also people who are living with the impacts of concussion. So among this group there's quite a strong New Zealand presences. Petry Hume and Alistairedom. They're both from the Auckland University of Technology,
professors and very skilled in the area. Doug King, who is a very qualified nurse who's made a real passion himself of research and concussion and trying to find answers to concussion and thempacts to it. And also one lady who's got to be coming from it from a different strand, Irene Gottlieb. Her husband is Jeff Old. It used to be in All Black Blues Forward of the late seventies and early eighties a month or two. Legendo for the past probably ten years has been living with early onset
dementia conditions. It's quite quite a sad story what's happened to Jeff. So amongst that four is also experts from the UK, from Australia and America, and they've been looking over the last few years and ways to make sports safer, waves to highlight the life changing impacts that concussion and evil people.
And they reference dwarf tossing. What do you think the significance is of that comparison? What message are they trying to send when they compare it to such a derogatory sport? Inverted comments, because when was that a thing?
Dwarf tossing, jeez, would have been the eighties, eighties and nineties.
Year.
Since they're probably the nineties, it's been very unpopular. I mean there used to be in New Zealand sort of organized dwarf tossing events at bars around the country. It was sort of how it was it happened. In the white paper that the Repercussion Group have published on run It, they've described it as well, likened it to dwarf tossing in the sense we organizers and their views turn real
human risk and harm into a spectacle. It's a pretty hard hitting paper that put out, and I think they've used that term ready to make a bit of a stand saying look, you know, for a while, amongst some people who went to a pub, they found dwarf tossing entertaining, similar with running straight. Some people find it entertaining, other people find it horrent, and they probably used the most emotional language that they can think of to get their point across.
The researchers liken the collisions in these events to car crashes without a seatbelt. What does that mean in terms of that brain injury risk.
In terms of the collision size. I think that's what they say. It's been sort of long talked about, probably the last maybe ten years, just talking about an impact on a rugby league fields from guys that are actually trained to take their bodies, a conditioned to take the headers. It is like a thirty kilometer and out crash. I think the rests are even more with running straight because a lot of the people that are involved, they're not
professional sports people. They don't work out in the gym eight and nine months a year to be conditioned to take these hits. So when you've got two guys that are all ladies, that are fairly well built running at each other full tilt, there's no rules on where you in rugby or league, you can't hit from above the shoulder. It's the shoulders to the jaw. Yes, several Jesus of force that are involved in the impact. So yeah, it's pretty scary to think, you know, it's the equivalent head
or crash. Without a safety belt. The rest of your body stops moving, but at the same time, your brain's still moving in your head. Something's going to have to give.
What is the incentive of signing yourself up to one of these events?
In New Zealand Australia this year with some of the organizing organized events, there was a surprise of twenty k which is quite interesting that the Ziller actually won the twenty thousand dollars and went off to a World championship in the Middle East. He actually apologized for being involved in the sense that he could actually did portray a bit of a bad look for people's safety.
You heard about that one story about that kidding, Yeah, yeah, that's pretty rough. Like I feel sorry for the families that is enjoying their pain from something that's been something that was safe, but like, yeah, that caused harm to somebody, that's not what it's all about. It that's all about just making sure that everyone's all safe, making sure that they're all well trained. But I also know what they're doing because that that helped me way more than anything else,
because Madam like losing your life. That helped me so much because I was like, he could have been something great.
So he's obviously twenty grand. There was several other events and Auckland that we was supposed to be held that were canceled due to the backlash, and counsel then pulled out of allowing the organizers to use see venues in the Middle East. There was a competition where two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was up for grabs and you know it's for a lot of people that's life changing. That is incredible.
Yeah, that's a quarter of a million.
Dollars back yourself to put a big hits on it. That's the money that's hard to turn down the score.
Why do you think these events are so popular from a spectator's standpoint? Is it kind of like driving past a car crash scenario that old that old chestnut.
I think definitely. I think that then they kind of stuck out with Runner when it exploded in such a sensational fashion earlier in New Zealand. It's it's very much I liking it to motor racing and speedway. There's a lot of people that might not be huge petrol heads or like watching the cars go around the track, but there's a lot of people that go to speedway and motor sport in particular to watch the crashes. There'll be people that go to football or rugby league that go
there to see the big hits. And I think those big hits that used to see in the eighties and nineties, especially in stat of Origin where you know it was as she glorified someone smashing someone into smotherings, I mean that those big hits are kind of vanished from the game because the game has been made to be a bit safer, where if you hit someone too high it's
at your legal now. So there's definitely an audience out there that love love big, physical confrontation, love someone coming off second best.
This is the heart love of the hits.
So the part is persons where we're very helpy.
What role do you think masculinity or the societal perceptions of being a big, tough guy play into it.
I think huge Chelsea, yeah, and rugby league. It's not just the professional level, but if you go into a too addressing rooms at are even a club level, which you've done many a year. I mean there are some people that are really fire up seeing opponents and they want to built them and smash them with run it Straight to It's not just the organized events. If you look on social media of people doing it in the backyard and unfortunately where the tragedy and he's where someone
died doing run in the backyard. But you know these videos of mates standing over other mates after the politics and I think masculinity and being the tough guy that that definitely plays a part.
Unfortunately, So there's a call to ban these It Straight events in New Zealand. Do you think the government has to actually intervene at some point for that to happen.
Yeah, most definitely. Obviously the Repercussion Group doesn't want this event in New Zealand, it doesn't want this event anywhere. Auckland Council were very proactively this year where they withheld access to their venues where running Straight events were meant to happen on These events are offering a lot of cash for the winner. The only way that it can be been formally is for the government to step in.
That's what the Repercussion Group's calling for, so that no doubt would come down to the Minister of Sport or the Minister of Health making a ruling. We're get to hear from Mark Mature's the Minister of Sport on it. He's previously been briefed as a government has been briefed on Runner, especially after the tragedy where palmerslor team lost his life.
I mean, thinking of other ways to try and stop this in its track. You've got to think about social media platforms. Right, this is where we're seeing all of the videos, and this is where you're seeing all the traction for these events. Could we do something like, I don't know, getting tech companies to stop monetizing these videos. But then again, I'm thinking, well, how likely is that going to happen? Because eyeballs mean money for these tech companies.
The repercussion grows really hot on social media companies demonetizing that content. There's probably a lot of people who were back there, but yeah, social media. Everyone knows that social media makes a lot of money out of advertising. Everyone in the media knows that. And you just can't see the likes of Facebook or Twitter or TikTok Instagram demonetizing that. It's you know, countless. What's the casion that they're making from videos such like.
In terms of the events themselves and people who sign themselves up to this kind of thing. I immediately thought, well, what's the difference between a run at straight event and if we were to say, have that Warrior show. You remember that show in the eighties nineties where normal people would go on to this show and like hand gladiators gladiators.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's the difference.
Between I suppose those people were quite.
Athletic gladia gladaders is probably nearly take on it, but there wasn't really I think gladiators, you know that you had helmets yet padding every shoulder, pads and pads arm pads, and I don't think the hats were as brutal, whereas with this you've got you know, people sort of running twenty three meters full board each other. The objects not to take someone down, it's to well around the ankles.
The object just to take someone down and knock them down set involves you know, nine times out of ten, the shoulder to the jaw or some sort of head blow. I mean, people sign up for it and if they get injured, unfortunately, that's on them. I think they could well open up a bit of a legal mindfield down the track about you know, whether someone's eligible for acc if they're involved in run it. Especially if run it's bann it's probably definitely a case of buyer beware.
Can we ban a sport well, I mean.
That's where it's going to have to come from, either the Ministry Health or the Minister of Sport. It'd be I mean, you're probably talking about big money too, that that the organizers have running a straight They're not running a charity, they're running a highly well it seems like a fairly professional sporting league. You're talking about, you know, big events in this in the Middle East where winners from New Zelanic and government or potentially two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars. I think if the government did sort of move towards banning that event, there'd be some some lawyers that will probably line up to try and take on an appeal.
And lastly, I know the researchers talk about us having an ethical duty, what do you think about that? Weigh up with, well, people know what they're getting them elves into. At what point do we intervene?
Yeah, I mean it's a good argument, but if you talk to more Jeff Old's wife, you know he was not even sixty when he started showing early onset dementia
conditions from head blows in the nineteen eighties. You talk to these researchers that are especially from the Orkan UniverCity of Technology, that are already talking to players who are in their late thirties early forties from rugby where thats weren't as hard as what you see in this run it and these guys are already showing early onset dementia conditions potential CTE, various of called dilemmeras are in the
front line. They're dealing with people that are getting injured in a boat of fire, traditional sporting environment that they just don't want to stand by and watch more people. And it's not just professional it's not professional athletes, it's you know, Joe blogs on the street having potentially life changing conditions while they chase twenty thousand dollars in the competition. I totally keep where US group's coming from.
Thanks for joining us, Neil see ChEls. That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Yee and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.