Umbrella-jousting, moustaches and gin-a-plenty on show at 2010 Chap Olympiad

The sixth annual Chap Olympiad took place on 17th July this year in Bedford Square gardens, Bloomsbury. This annual tournament for the well-trousered pits Britain's weediest athletes against each other, and truly tests their gentlemanly mettle. We asked The Chap founder Gustav Temple for his assessment of the day. Read his thoughts below, and see some more choice photos from the event after the break.

The English have not received many sporting plaudits on the world stage in recent months, but perhaps this was because they were trying too hard at games simply not suited to them. There were no points being awarded for immaculate trouser creases in South Africa this year, but at the Chap Olympiad such attention to sartorial detail would have brought any contestant that much closer to winning the coveted gold cravat.

Other gentlemanly skills put on trial this Saturday were the hurling of a china plate loaded with a delicate cucumber sandwich; the mixing of a perfect dry martini over a gruelling ten-yard course; the wriggling below a steadily lowered pole, while sharing a double pair of tweed trousers with a perfect stranger, in 3-Trousered Limbo; and the greatest and most dangerous challenge of them all: Umbrella Jousting, in which one must try to knock one's opponent of his bicycle with a furled umbrella, protected only by a bowler hat and a reinforced copy of a broadsheet newspaper.

The Chap Olympic judges had a difficult task this year. So many splendid outfits, such panache, such skullduggery. The final 3 winners are selected on a victor ludorum basis, i.e. the most consistently elegant/caddish/underhand performers throughout the entire afternoon's events, and in the end it was a Victorian strong man calling himself the Great Colonessi who took the gold cravat, while Michael "Atters" Attree won silver and Dawn Hollingworth won Bronze.




(All Pictures By Rex Features)

What is The Chap?

Since 1999, The Chap magazine has been championing the rights of that increasingly marginalised and discredited species of Englishman - the gentleman.

The Chap believes that a society without courteous behaviour and proper headwear is a society on the brink of moral and sartorial collapse, and it seeks to reinstate such outmoded but indispensable gestures as hat doffing, giving up one's seat to a lady and regularly using a trouser press.

We encourage you to visit The Chap online to read more about their sterling work, and to take advantage of a subscription to the magazine.