YouTube star Ludwig set to commentate Olympic Chessboxing

YouTube star Ludwig Ahgren and Chessboxing champ Mat Thomas will provide official English commentary for the 2024 Paris Olympics’ Chessboxing Exhibition — and they couldn’t be happier about it.

The 2024 Olympics are almost here, and they’re adding a surprising sport to the lineup: Chessboxing.

As its name implies, Chessboxing combines chess and boxing, pitting opponents against each other across the board and in the boxing ring for a combination sport unlike anything else.

Prominent YouTuber Ludwig Ahgren has made no bones about his passion for Chessboxing, and even held his own Mogul Chessboxing event in 2022 that drew a peak of 317k viewers.

Now, he gets to take that passion to the highest stage imaginable; the 2024 Paris Olympics, where he and fellow Chessboxing aficionado, Mat Thomas, will be the official commentators for a Chessboxing Exhibition.

Both stars announced the news on Twitter/X, clearly excited about the opportunity. However, as noted by Ludwig, the matches will not be broadcast live, nor are they an official Olympic sport as of yet. Instead, these are merely exhibition matches, which will be uploaded to Ludwig’s YouTube channel when he returns from Paris.

That’s not all; Thomas also revealed that the bouts will be filmed as part of a documentary, which will be released when the event is over.

“Honored to be doing English commentary with @LudwigAhgren for the @Paris2024 Chessboxing Exhibitions tonight,” Thomas wrote. “It won’t be live broadcasted, but we will be releasing the @ifc_officiel fights along with a documentary on this historic event. Thanks to all who have supported us and this weird little sport we love!”

This Olympic-funded exhibition will feature two matches: Kenza Megzari vs Sneha Waykar and Carl Strugnell vs Valentin Marcel.

Although the concept of Chessboxing has been around since the 70’s, this marks one of the first times the sport has made such a major splash in the international athletic community — and one of YouTube’s biggest stars gets to sit at the helm of this historic event, which takes place on the night of July 23, 2024.

Ludwig isn’t the only YouTuber making waves at the 2024 Olympics. Jake Paul is also headed to Paris as an official partner with the Games to promote boxing and “create a wave of excitement for boxing at this year’s Olympics, while educating USA’s best amateur boxing talent on the importance of building your skills inside and outside the ring.”