The walls are lined with spectators as the sun hangs low in the sky. It is 5.30pm on a Friday at the wrestling arena in Hajj Yousif, Khartoum, Sudan and the air is thick with anticipation as two wrestlers circle one another at the center of the sand-filled ring -- bowed forward, with their eyes locked and foreheads just millimeters from touching.
The men wait for the perfect moment to lunge.
With
one fluid motion, Mujahid, whose wrestling name is Arabic for
"combatant," locks his opponent's arm, pulling him forward then moving
away from under him. John Cena, named after the WWE icon, stumbles
backwards. Dust rises as his back hits the ground, concluding the round
and confirming his loss. Without missing a beat, Mujahid runs out of the
ring and into the arms of his teary mother, one of the few women in the
roaring stadium. Men come out of the audience with wads of cash and
slap each congratulatory note to his forehead while folk music from his
Nuba homeland blares in the background.
Sudan's wrestlers aim for Olympic glory 00:46
Wrestling
has been a fixture amongst the Nuba tribes in South Kordofan, Sudan,
for thousands of years. Far from just a game, it is a display of
gallantry and
valor so steeped in heritage that it served as the prime
focus in a sensational photo series by Leni Riefenstahl -- a documentary filmmaker who once worked for Hitler -- catapulting the Nuba, in the 20th century, into cultural icons.
Now, as the Sudanese government wages a bloody counterinsurgency campaign
in the Nuba's Mountain homeland, the sport has found another home in
the government-built stadium in the capital. Even as its birthplace
comes under attack, the spirit of Nuba wrestling is very much alive.
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