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Second Place
Stephen Ferry Redux
"Cholita Lucha Libre"


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In the mostly indigenous city of El Alto, Bolivia, a new sport has sprung up: 'Cholita' freestyle wrestling. Modeled after mexican Lucha Libre, Cholita wrestling features Aymara women, wearing their traditional layers of pleated skirts, who are known as Cholitas. In this sequence, Marisol Kali, a 17-year old newcomer to the sport, loses consciousness in the ring. But she is undeterred: asked if she would return to fight after this ordeal, she replied that since she was 8 years old she wanted to be a professional wrestler, but at the time only men wrestled. She says she will continue to show that women, and expecially Cholitas, who have suffered much discrimination in Bolivian society , are 'capable of anything.' And, besides, she adds, she 'loves it.'
 

 

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