I’d never seen ringworm until I visited the wrestling venue. One athlete had it and proudly showed me the rings on his neck as a badge of courage. Wrestlers get ringworm from dirt on the mats, and it’s a big deal: No street shoes are allowed on the competition floor, and wrestlers are inspected for ringworm before they get onto the mat.
Jeroen Tan from the Netherlands is competing. He remembers hosting the Gay Games in 1998 in Amsterdam and the anti-gay repercussions that followed: His gay wrestling group was not allowed to join the national wrestling federation because of homophobia. He remembers hearing anti-gay epithets the day after the closing ceremony in Amsterdam. And he said the wrestling world in the Netherlands is very homophobic. However, he is now the president of the Dutch national wrestling federation.
There were some grumblings at wrestling about how the event was being run. Gene Dermody (right), who won a gold medal, said that with only 40 competitors in the event it was a smaller group than Gay Games I in 1982. Plus, I noticed that several matches were won by forfeit and many did not even last 90 seconds. When I asked around about that, it seems the organizers didn’t do a great job of pairing up wrestlers. Two matches I saw pitted grey-haired men in their 50s or 60s against big, muscular men in their 20s. Seemed odd to me.
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 9:16 AM
A few things to note:
– The wrestler with the ringworm was not in the tournament.
– The tournament was beautifully run and there was wide consensus at that point during the tournament and afterward. The experience was so great that virtually all of the wrestlers showed up the following night for a team dinner.
– The pooling of the wrestlers, which collapsed the age groups, was done in violation of WWB rules and without warning until moments before the first match. Those matches between people from different age groups within the pool did not count in the medals awarded and did provide for some good exhibitions. However, the age divisions are there for several reasons, primarily safety, and our preference would have been for GC to run the medals matches first, then allow competitors to pick up exhibition matches if they liked.
Roger Brigham
Chairman, Wrestlers WithOut Borders
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 10:24 AM
Just for some clarification, because this was a great event, and I do not want to diminish it for anyone, especially the wrestlers. My beef is with the ‘not invented here’ syndrome, as if running wrestling tournaments was so different around the world. It isn’t.
Getting critical mass of wrestlers to hold a tournament is a no brainer, and frankly until Hosts understand that our LGBT events are NOT supposed to be emulating the Olympics, I would prefer they both stop taking registration money from wrestlers: 2006 Montreal 20, 2009 Copenhagen 6.. not even a good practice.
The GayGames won this ‘recognition’ battle 20 years ago. We do not need to prove anything to anyone. What we do need to do is a better job of following the Tom Waddell dictum of Participation, Inclusion, and Personal Best (PIPB) within our community, and stop worrying about impressing the mainstream organizations. We wrestlers are not that insecure.
I am also so tired of dealing with this lazy host outsourcing, this ‘throw-it-over-the-wall’ mentality to non-gay organizations to try to look ‘MainStream’ so someone in the host organization gets a post event ‘Resume’ item. There is nothing more infuriating than to watch these outsourced organizations trying to cut corners and diminish the experience just to get it over with as quickly as possible, using the excuse of ‘their rules’.
WWB has run the GayGames wrestling since 1994 with these modifieds rules, and has attracted anywhere from 100 – 160 wrestlers, more than twice the Koeln registration. In many ways Koeln could have been so much more with critical mass and cooperation, especially with the quality people of Koeln I encountered when I finally got to meet them.
Our WWB rule modifications are and have been consistent with FILA rules since 1994, and are designed to maximize PIPB. There is no excuse not to have the enthusiastic and early cooperation of the host and WWB built around the license agreement (that specifically states WWB is the sanctioining body!). WWB has worked hand in glove in the past with USA-Wrestling, New South Wales Wrestling (AU), and even the Dutch Wrestling Federation (once they met us)! WWB has run multiple tournaments every year since 1994 and knows our community and its enlightened philosophy.
We all want the same thing, and this WWB approach is a proven past precedent. We offer 10 weight classes instead of just 7; we offer OPEN, MASTERS, and SENIOR age divisions; and we offer female and male categories. The opportunities to register and medal are dramatically increased form the standard mainstream FILA to enhance registration. This is all just fine and even encouraged by FILA!
The PIPB goal is also NOT to build the event around or feature elite wrestlers. PIPB encourages us to offer MORE than reasonable opportunities for novices and intermediate wrestlers who have never experienced the limelight to compete and possibly medal. It is this kind of success that builds the buzz for the next cycle, and we all know it is all about registration numbers.
With that said, the Koeln officials did wind up doing what WWB sort of wanted all along, but it had to hammered out only minutes (without problems) before the tournament start instead of 2-3 years out, when we could have been working together to increase registration instead of being at odds over -nothing-. This depressed registrations especially with the Americans. WWB cannot promote what it does not know.
So I especially want to thank Jens Hoffman, Deni, Ludgvar, Ewald, the NRW officials, and especially Horst for a quality & memorable event. I was brought to tears many times during the competition, and especially at the wrestlers dinner, where there was almost 100% attendance and integration despite language differences.
I saw the unity and camaradarie I saw back in Sydney 2002 before the accursed GLISA divided us.
I personally was so happy to reconnect with Jerone Tan of Amsterdam, and Manfred Molt of Stuttgart. As Jerone always reminds me, The Dutch Wrestling Federation still talks about GayGames 1998 as a significant political event (Jerone went from being excluded pariah in 1998 to become the president of the Dutch Wrestling Federation).
Many of the medalists this year were novices, and their lives were changed. This is what it is all about.
I am sure I will be posting more…
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 12:42 PM
I didn’t mean to make it look like anyone said the tournament wasn’t great! Everyone seemed to be having a great time!!
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 5:33 PM
I’m 46, and I’d love to get paired up with a muscly 20 year old.
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 8:11 PM
The tournament was run very well!
on Aug 18th, 2010 at 12:25 PM
(Part 1)
A couple of comments about ringworm: It is everywhere, and almost impossible to control. You may only wear your wrestling shoes inside, but if you walk where anyone else walked who is in street shoes, you risk bringing it on the mat.
On the other hand ringworm, and all of the other nasty things like Staph (and MRSA) you can get on the mat, are easy to avoid. You shouldn’t rely on others disinfecting the mats or being responsible for your health. You should protect yourself.
(The Commercial)
Hibiclens (Chlorhexidine Gluconate) is a liquid skin cleanser sold in almost every pharmacy in the USA. It protects you from just about everything you can get on the wrestling mat, the basketball and volleyball court and any other sport where you are coming in contact with other athletes. Ringworm and MRSA have been huge issues at health clubs where you lie on a bench or yoga mat shared by others. Hibiclens protects you for about 6 hours after you shower with it, and it kills everything if you shower immediately after (within 20 minutes is best). After getting a MRSA infection the size of a softball on my back from my local Bally’s Health Club and going through the treatment including having it very painfully cut open and drained, I take care of myself now and carry a travel sized bottle of Hibiclens with me to the gym. My doctor suggested that I have someone help me wash my back with it to be safe. I follow his advice as often as I can which often brings it’s own benefits.
(Part 2)
You say the wrestler displayed it as a badge of courage. I would say he was just showing a good face to everyone. The wrestler flew from California to wrestle and didn’t get to compete. Sadder yet, he was our only heterosexual wrestler that I know of that was planning on wrestling with us. Nothing beats homophobia like having one of your heterosexual teammates support you by coming to the gay games with you. He got ringworm coaching a young wrestler before he left. The young wrestle did not take responsibility for not wrestling when he knew he had ringworm, ended up giving it to his teammates and coach who had to suffer for his actions.
To prove my commercial for Hibiclens above, I wrestled him after the tournament, showered with Hibiclens (where another wrestler was nice enough to wash my back) and did not even get a hint of ringworm.
(Part 3)
The tournament was run with excellent efficiency and entertainment. The Refereeing was great and they have asked to be invited to the Cleveland Games. The Running on every other mat not only allowed you to watch more wrestling, it allowed proper time between matches. Where you saw a 50+ year olds wrestling a muscular 20 year olds, I have two comments. 1) The young wrestles were in their 30’s, we just age well and 2) those young wrestlers were some of our most experienced wrestlers who know how to wrestle safely and can control their moves. Gene (see his comments above) has promoted the motto “DONT BREAK YOUR TOYS”. Meaning if you hurt the guys you are wrestling, you quickly run out of guys to wrestle. We all live by this as a rule. Many times I will give up a move that I know I could get if I pushed it, but puts my opponent at risk. I have kicked guys out of my Chicago Wrestling Club who could not grasp the idea. Why let one guy wrestle who has no respect for his opponent’s health. A third comment is that most of those 50+ year olds can kick the 20 year olds all around the mat so don’t feel too sorry for them. They would be insulted if you said that they couldn’t or shouldn’t wrestle the younger guys.
Sorry for writing so much. Hope you enjoyed my book length response.
Josh Watkins
Chicago Wrestling Club
on May 2nd, 2011 at 6:49 AM
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on Nov 18th, 2011 at 4:18 AM
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on Nov 21st, 2011 at 4:25 PM
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on Nov 22nd, 2011 at 10:21 PM
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