Takedown Report

Wrestling Team in Australia Fights to Prove It’s Not an ‘African Gang’

Editor’s Note; A wrestling story from way, way, way to the south and it was in the New York Times! Yet a different look at how much variety there is in the sport and how it can benefit in a variety of ways.
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MELBOURNE, Australia — The men call themselves the Melbourne Lion Wrestling Team.
The name evokes both origins in Africa and a presence in Australia, a fitting title for a team composed of South Sudanese immigrants living in Melbourne, Australia’s second biggest city. Every week, more than a dozen men, ages 15 to 30, meet to practice on an Australian football oval or, if the weather permits, along the beach. A few times a year, they travel across Australia to compete with other teams, trading the animal skins and ash traditionally worn during Sudanese wrestling matches for gym shorts and talcum powder. “We want to keep our culture alive,” Awan Mading, 30, said during a recent practice. “It’s also good exercise. You can see we’re breathing heavily from the cardio.” When not refining their grapples and takedowns, the men are factory workers, bank employees and students. In Sudan, wrestling is a popular sport and an integral part of the culture, melding athletics with dance and song. But here, the men strike an unusual — and to some Australian eyes, threatening — image: tall, black, often shirtless men fighting one another. Rest of the story at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/world/australia/sudan-african-gangs-wrestling.html?mc_cid=70ec74af24&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

February 13, 2018 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized