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2002 Wrestling Tournaments a PreView of Sydney GayGames VI

By Gene Dermody
Special for Outsports.com

With GayGames VI only eight months away, the 2002 wrestling circuit has started up, and it promises to be a barn-burner of a year! This year's tournaments are currently being detailed on the new Wrestlers WithOut Borders Web site:  and include Florida (SawMill), Sydney (MardiGras), Berlin (Reichenow), Paris (Easter), Pennsylvania (HillSide), Oklahoma (Okie-Rumble), and San Francisco (Memorial Day) between now and Sydney, 1 November 2002 GayGames VI.

The first of these events was held 16 February near Tampa Florida at the SawMill Camp grounds. Special thanks to the Tampa Eagles Wrestlers for hosting the event. Some 30 grapplers from NYC, Rochester, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Alaska, Denver, DC, Florida, and Philadelphia showed up for the event. The usual 20 weight and age divisions were radically collapsed into just 3 divisions to make for a very competitive tournament. Wrestlers included some returning GayGames veterans (and some medalists) Rick Van Tassell, Lou Hidu, Ed Lindsay, Bob Lubarsky, Nick Zymara, Ron Ward, Bob Sayers, Rick Weeks, and Gene Dermody.

The collapsing of the divisions made for some very 'interesting' spectacle.
Division#1 < 150
Division#2 >=150 and < 190
Division#3 >= 190

The three Gold Medalists in those divisions (left):
Tim Hall (Washington DC) Div#1
Tom Dwyer (Rochester NY) Div#2 
Dave Wegner (Philadelphia PA) Div#3

Tim and Dave are seasoned freeStylers, and are odds on favorites to dominate their divisions this year. The surprise was the sheer physicality and determination of novice dark horse Tom Dwyer, who literally manhandled all of his competition.

In Sydney, the annual Mardi Gras 1 March event drew a packed house, and featured a Seoul Olympics wrestler (Martin, in singlet) from England, and the former World Junior Champion (Alex, sans singlet) from Sydney, formerly of Romania.