Unit 2 Competitions - 2CDEF Bolivian wrestlers, Mongolian horse racing

In Bolivia, football is the country's national sport but the country is also famous for another sport - wrestling. Local people like watching the wrestling and it's very popular with tourists. It's an exciting mixture of sport, drama and entertainment. When modern wrestling started in Bolivia in the 1950s, the competitors were all men, but nowadays women are also competing in the ring. 

The city of El Alto is a good place to watch the wrestling. Hundreds of spectators go to the fights in the evening. This evening, the crowd is sitting round a huge wrestling ring and they shout: 'Bring them on! Bring them on!' Suddenly, the commentator is speaking into a microphone: 'Ladies and Gentlemen. It's time for Yolanda and Claudina!' The crowd is screaming with excitement as two women in colourful clothes enter the ring. 

Yolanda and Claudina are like famous pop stars. They smile and wave to their fans. The music stops and the referee starts the fight. Claudina jumps on Yolanda. Then Yolanda throws Claudina on the floor. As Claudina lies on the floor, Yolanda smiles and waves to the crowd. Then, Claudina gets up and pushes Yolanda onto the ground. One minute Yolanda is winning. The next minute, Claudina is winning. The spectators go crazy! 

Away from the ring, many wrestlers are women with families. At home Yolanda has a normal and quiet family life. She has two daughters and she makes clothes for a living. Her father was also a wrestler, so it's a family tradition. In answer to the question, 'Would your daughters like to become wrestlers one day?' Yolanda says they wouldn't. She answers: 'My daughters ask me why I do this. It's dangerous and they complain that wrestling doesn't bring any money into the house.' So why does she do it? 

Yolanda loves wrestling because of her fans, and she has lots of them. One of her fans is called Esperanza Cancina. She pays $1.50 (a large part of her salary) to sit near the ring. Esperanza likes watching the wrestling because she says: 'We laugh and we forget our problems for three or four hours.'