African Olympic Qualifier

[akzent]

African qualification tourney, March 16-18

In GR, Gaber won at 84 kg.

At 120 kg freestyle, Malal Ndiaye of Senegal qualified for the Olympics.
He is a top wrestler in.... Senegalese folk style

[Gantry]

Weird, they allow punches in their folkstyle?

[akzent]

They have 2 styles - without and with punches.

Wrestling whithout punches is the older one; has many local or ethnic variations. It's practiced mostly in rural areas and was (and possibly still is) organized on religious/ceremonial occasions mainly.

Wrestling with punches got established as urban sport in the 1920s, in colonial time, possibly as a result of the encounter with the French, but was standardizes and instutionalized only in the 1990s. It became a highly lucrative, comercialized and professionalized activity with extremly wide audience. It can attact up to 80.000 people to the stadium in Dakar, plus it's broadcast on tv in prime time. So it is the most popular sport in Senegal now and Senegal seems to be the only nation in the world where folk style wrestling is more popular than football and a top wrestler earns more than a top football player.

Here an interesting article about the developments since the 1990s and the present day situation:
Traditional wrestler purses up to $200,000 in Senegal, Africa | IndepthAfrica
The author writes - the average annual income in Senegal is 980 $; a top wrestler can win up to 205.000 $ in a competition.

Another interesting report with photos:
http://www.reportagebygettyimages.co...-pdf/11293.pdf

[akzent]

Fighting talk: Why wrestling is booming in Senegal - CNN.com

[gutfirst]

great stuff, thanks

[arm-spin]

Do you know how South Africa did?

I'm assuming Heinrich Barnes, who trains in the US, wrestled here as well.

[akzent]

South Africa didn't participate at the African championships and the qualification tourney; no idea why.

[akzent]

Wrestling in Senegal

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/sp...egal.html?_r=1

The Allure of Laamb - Video Library - The New York Times

[Gantry]

Great article and video, thanks for posting.