From Backyard Game to World Champion

Most sports have long histories. They emerge from decades of tradition, codification, rule refinement. World Chase Tag has a different origin: a backyard in the early 2010s, a father and son asking a simple question, and the competitive instinct that turned a children's game into a global phenomenon.

Orlando Devaux was that son. And over a decade on, he remains at the heart of the sport he unknowingly helped to create.

This matters far more than it might first appear. Most athletes inherit their sports from history. They enter traditions built over decades, sometimes centuries. They learn rules written by others long before, develop within frameworks already established by predecessors. Orlando is different. He is both architect and inhabitant of World Chase Tag. He shaped the sport's foundation while competing at its highest levels. That combination is rare. It requires not just physical talent, but foresight, involvement, and the ability to think about how a game evolves even while you're competing in it.

What started as a curious question?

The story goes like this. Christian Devaux and his son Orlando were playing tag. Simple, ordinary tag. But Orlando asked his father: who actually wins at tag? Not the dramatic moment when someone gets caught. Not the theatrical chase. Who, measured properly, genuinely plays best?

Christian and Orlando devised a method. They used iPhones to measure how long each of them spent as the tagger during a game. The person who spent less time "on tag" was the winner. It sounds deceptively simple, but the insight was profound: tag could be measured, codified, turned into competition. Most children's games exist as play. This one could become sport.

From that homemade experiment, a concept emerged. Christian's brother Damien saw the potential and recognized that what had started as a question between a father and son could scale beyond a single backyard. Together, the family developed formal competition formats, built proper courts, and began organizing events. They established rules, created structure, and invited other athletes to compete. What started as a curiosity about a children's game became the infrastructure for a new competitive sport.

By the time World Chase Tag took formal shape, Orlando wasn't just part of the founding moment. He lived it. He watched his family build something from nothing, and as he progressed through parkour, he saw the opportunity to compete in the sport they had created.

How does someone compete in a sport they helped invent?

Orlando's parkour foundation came from standard routes. Years of training, progression, building the technical base that any aspiring athlete needs. But unlike most parkour athletes, he had something else: early exposure to competitive tag, and the family knowledge of how the sport worked at its roots.

By his early twenties, Orlando had become not just a participant in World Chase Tag, but a serious contender. He won the UK World Chase Tag Championship. He co-founded Team PHAT, a collective that has become synonymous with elite parkour performance and innovation in competitive tag. Team PHAT was named Best Team at the Storror Awards two years in a row. In a sport where marginal gains matter, where fractions of a second separate winners from the field, Team PHAT's recognition reflected Orlando's influence on competitive standards. His movement became known for what coaches describe as unmatched speed, precision, and explosive power. He flows through environments with control and urgency, creating parkour lines that are both fast and visually clean.

The progression feels logical on paper. But progression in an emerging sport is different. There are no textbooks. No established pathways. No decades of technique to inherit. Every athlete in World Chase Tag was, in a sense, inventing the sport as they went. Orlando had the advantage of family knowledge, but also the burden of helping to define what excellence looks like.

What does it mean to build a platform while competing?

By the mid-2010s, Orlando and Team PHAT were doing something most parkour athletes hadn't quite figured out: they were creating consistent, high-quality content. Six years of YouTube videos. Regular posts across Instagram. A growing audience that followed their progression, their competitions, their creative work.

This dual role (competitor and creator) shapes how people like Orlando see their sport. A parkour competition is no longer just a live event. It's content. It's a story to tell, a moment to capture, an opportunity to show audiences what the sport is about.

Orlando brought that sensibility to Team PHAT's output. Their videos aren't just highlight reels. They show the process. They show the failed attempts, the conversations, the strategy. They show tag as the thinking person's sport it actually is.

This approach attracted brand attention. Ollo Shoes. Gymshark. Nokia. These aren't typically parkour sponsors, but they recognised something in Orlando and Team PHAT: a group of athletes who understood how to communicate their craft to audiences beyond the existing parkour bubble.

What bridges competition and commercial work?

Here's where Orlando's story becomes relevant to anyone considering working with movement athletes. He shows a model that very few parkour athletes have successfully executed: genuine excellence in competition, combined with the ability to translate that excellence into other formats.

The bridge between these worlds is technical credibility. When a production team books an athlete with legitimate competitive titles and achievements, they're not hiring a dancer who does parkour. They're hiring someone who has proven themselves under measured conditions, against skilled opposition. That distinction matters to clients who understand the difference.

He appeared in campaigns at Thorpe Park, bringing parkour performance to a mainstream venue. He featured in the television show Below Deck, where the skills that make someone a World Chase Tag champion (explosive movement, precision, the ability to perform reliably under pressure) become entertainment.

These aren't distractions from his competitive career. They are expressions of the same set of skills. A movement athlete who can excel in competition is already demonstrating precision, spatial awareness, and the ability to perform under pressure. Translating those skills to a film set or a brand activation is not a separate discipline. It's the same discipline applied to a different context.

This is why Orlando has maintained momentum across different platforms. He hasn't fragmented his focus. He has a single, coherent skill set: elite-level parkour movement. He has found multiple ways to apply it.

Why does the sport itself matter?

World Chase Tag has grown in a way that would have seemed unlikely in those early backyard days. It's now organized internationally, with athletes from dozens of countries competing in championships. The format has been refined, the technical bar has risen, the spectacle has evolved.

But the sport still carries the imprint of its origins. It's fundamentally about what Christian and Orlando asked on that day: who is fastest, most precise, most efficient at this task? It's tag, distilled to its essence. No equipment. No elaborate rules. Just movement, strategy, and the ability to perform under pressure.

Orlando remains part of that story. He is one of the athletes most directly connected to the sport's founding, and one of the athletes most visibly pushing it forward. That combination is rare. Most athletes inherit the sports they compete in. Orlando helped invent his.

Frequently Asked Questions

What movement skills define Orlando's style?

Orlando is known for speed and explosive power. He flows through parkour environments with precision, creating clean lines that combine technical accuracy with athletic intensity. His approach to chase tag emphasises efficiency: doing exactly what's required, with no wasted motion, at the highest possible tempo.

How long has Orlando been training in parkour?

He has over 10 years of experience in parkour and chase tag. His progression coincided with World Chase Tag's development, giving him unique exposure to the sport from its competitive inception.

Is Team PHAT still actively competing?

Yes. Team PHAT remains active in competitive World Chase Tag, creates consistent online content, and works on brand collaborations. The team has maintained recognition through multiple Storror Awards for Best Team.

Can movement athletes actually work in film and television?

Yes, and Orlando is an example. The core skills that make someone excellent in parkour competition (precision, explosive power, the ability to perform reliably under controlled pressure) translate directly to film and television performance. Production teams value athletes who understand technical execution, movement quality, and their own physical limits. Orlando's commercial work demonstrates this alignment.

How can I work with Orlando on a project?

Orlando is available for bookings through Movement Management UK. Browse his athlete profile or visit the hire a parkour performer page to discuss your project. If you're planning movement work for film or television, our guide to parkour in film stunt work covers what to expect when briefing movement talent on set.

Book Orlando Devaux for Your Next Production

Get in touch with Movement Management to check availability and discuss your project with our team.