It’s a viral social media trend that’s already ended in tragedy.
Run It Straight involves participants running at each other head on and at full speed aiming for a knock out, and it has concussion experts furious.
The premise is in the name, and it’s drawn the ire of head injury experts.
Headsafe founder Dr Adrian Cohen called it a “stupid idea”.
“We certainly don’t like activities that create pain, that create damage and that fundamentally are designed to hurt people,” he said.
“We probably need a ministry of common sense, because this would be the very first thing to be chucked out.”
His uncle, Peter has called for big names to call it out
“I am hoping that out of this we get some All Blacks, some league players stand up, and express what sort of dumb idea that this particular game is,” he said.
Run It Straight and other activities like it don’t fall under any particular legislation. The questions are what can be done about it, and who’s going to do it.
“It’s not a sport. It’s not a combat sport. We can’t legislate against every bad idea,” NSW Wales Sport Minister Steve Kamper said.
Australian Sports Commission CEO and Olympic legend Kieren Perkins said it was a “dangerous activity which doesn’t align with any of our advice”.
“When it comes to protecting Australians from concussion and brain injuries,” he said.
Run It Straight, which holds organised events, insists it is here to stay, but says the sport should not be copied outside of its strict conditions.
