Aim: To launch an elegant hardback book about The Chap Olympiad at the first Chap Olympiad since 2019
The Chap Olympiad began in 2005 and soon became one of the summer’s social fixtures in London. Growing from 25 people, two bottles of gin, one bottle of vermouth and a handful of vintage sports props in a corner of Regent’s Park, eventually it was a huge ticketed spectacle in Bedford Square Gardens, Bloomsbury with 1,500 attendants.
A ten-metre raised track covered in Astroturf played host to some of the most bizarre ‘sports’ ever concocted. From Hop, Skip and G&T to Cucumber Sandwich Discus to Umbrella Jousting, they ranged from the relatively simple and very silly, to the rather difficult and downright dangerous – step forward Ironing Board Surfing, in which contestants had to be carried on a wobbly ironing board by four inebriated assistants along a gruelling ten-yard track.
The Chap Olympiad ran for fifteen consecutive years at a number of locations across the UK, including a brief stint as a sideshow at the actual London Olympics in 2012. The event soon became a fixture on the London social calendar, attracting an eccentric, dandyishly dressed crowd rarely seen at any sporting occasion. The guests, clad in everything from full Regency military wear to 1940s Land Girls, would take part in every event, producing some of the most unforgettable images ever seen at a sporting occasion.
The proposed book would feature many of the glorious colour photographs taken at each event over the years by professional photographers, capturing both the eccentric spirit of the event and the wonderful clothing of the participants. Captions would be written by Gustav Temple, editor of the Chap Magazine, who hosted the Olympiad and which celebrated its 25th year of publication in 2024.
Funds raised by this campaign would be used to produce several thousand copies of the book, which would be launched in London on Saturday 8th November at the first restaging of The Chap Olympiad since 2019. Tickets to this landmark event will be one of the rewards offered to supporters.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 1st September 2025 at 4:39pm