A New Zealand coroner yesterday condemned a “perilous” sport in which competitors sprint and crash into each other without protective gear.
“Runit” competitors line up 20m apart and run directly at each other, with the winner being the person who “dominates the collision.”
Coroner Bruce Hesketh issued the warning as a separate comment in his report into a club player who died after being tackled in a traditional rugby league game.
Photo: AFP
The Australian-based Runit Championship League set up a base in New Zealand this year.
It offers a NZ$20,000 (US$12,000) prize to winners of regional competitions and NZ$200,000 to the overall winner of the tournament.
Fueled by social media, unsanctioned splinter events have been held in Australia and New Zealand.
Last month, 19-year-old Ryan Satterthwaite died in New Zealand after sustaining a head injury during one such event.
Hesketh, who is not looking into the teenager’s death, said he was concerned about the Runit events.
“The competition has all the hallmarks of perilous activity that makes no attempt to mitigate head injury,” he said. “There appears to be no governing body, the activity is not regulated and has no written publicly accessible rules of participation.”
“Neither is there any information to players around the signs and dangers of concussion or concussion management,” he said.
Hesketh said the goal in rugby union and rugby league is to avoid tackles, whereas the goal in Runit competition is the opposite.
“Furthermore, all the applicable team sporting bodies involved have invested heavily in concussion awareness, prevention, identity and management,” Hesketh said.
Runit events “should not be recognized as an official sport,” he said.
The Runit Championship League touts itself as the “home of collisions.”
In the Runit Championship League’s first event in Auckland last month, two people were knocked out and one man had seizures after a head injury.
The collision that led to the seizures was greeted with loud cheers from a crowd of more than 1,000 people.
The league organizers had planned to host the final event in Auckland, but moved it to Dubai after calls for it to be banned in New Zealand.
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