A controversial, brutal sporting event has been shut down in Australia \u2013 two days out after organisers lost their bid to avoid stricter regulation.<\/p>\n
The Run Nation Championship was scheduled to be held on Saturday at Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse.<\/p>\n
But ticket-holders will be left disappointed after the event was shut down in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Organisers attempted to argue the so-called “run it straight” event \u2013 in which competitors have to run directly at each other and try to “win” the collision \u2013 was not a combat sport under state law.<\/p>\n
A combat sport is one where “the primary objective of each combatant … is to strike, kick, hit, grapple with, throw or punch one or more other combatants”.<\/p>\n
The Combat Sports Authority cancelled the event, saying it had not complied with the rules required for such an event to be staged.<\/p>\n
Run Nation launched a judicial review of the decision, which was slapped down by Justice Andrew Coleman.<\/p>\n
“The wording in the code describing the contact as a ‘tackle’ cannot alter the fact RNC (Run Nation Championship) is a collision sport,” Justice Coleman said in his judgement.<\/p>\n
“The essence of the activity is the collision between them.”<\/p>\n
The Run It championship league attempted to mirror the physical collisions seen during rugby league or union games, but has some concerned. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
After the decision, Run Nation chief executive Tremaine Fernandez said the ruling was not a death sentence for the sport.<\/p>\n
“This hearing was not about RNC being banned,” Fernandez said.<\/p>\n
“RNC is here to stay and, based on the ruling today, we’re excited to work with the Combat Sports Authority and the opportunities that may bring.”<\/p>\n
Fernandez said Saturday’s event at Randwick would be postponed.<\/p>\n
The organisers later said on social media that tickets would be carried over to the yet-to-be-scheduled event automatically, but refunds would be available for those unable to attend the later date.<\/p>\n
Coleman acknowledged there would be consequences for those excited to see the event take place.<\/p>\n
“There may be commercial consequences for Run Nation and its backers because of this decision,” he said.<\/p>\n
Ryan Satterthwaite, 19, suffered a serious head injury while playing a game based on the controversial craze. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
“There may also be inconvenience to members of the public who have purchased tickets to attend the event.<\/p>\n
“Neither of those consequences are relevant to the … decision I have made.”<\/p>\n
Multiple former NRL players are connected with Run Nation, including former Canberra Raiders and Melbourne Storm player Sandor Earl, who was in court for the decision.<\/p>\n
Earl received a four-year ban for doping in October 2015.<\/p>\n
Run Nation is also required to pay legal costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A controversial, brutal sporting event has been shut down in Australia \u2013 two days out after organisers lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-596202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}