Step on to the mats with wrestling history
America’s shrine to the sport of wrestling, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame opened in 1976 with a mission to ‘Preserve History, Recognize Excellence and Inspire Future Generations’. The museum honors the greatest names in wrestling and displays memorabilia, including Olympic gold medals. It also features interactive exhibits as well as the opportunity…
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Step in to a story with a closer look at MMA
Tough Guys is a 2017 documentary film that explores the development of mixed martial arts as a mainstream sporting event in the United States from 1979-1983. In 1979, more than a decade before the UFC , CV Productions created a new sport that involved an anything-goes fight league that recruited street fighters, wrestlers, martial artists, boxers and braw…
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Boxing for his life. The story of Victor ‘Young’ Perez
“Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the Palace of Sports in Paris, France where 16,000 wildly excited fans are ready for the main event of the evening tonight, October 24th 1931! This match is for the World Flyweight crown!” Have you heard the story of Victor 'Young’ Perez, the flyweight boxing champion who was originally from Tunis but died in the Holoc…
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Iraqi war survivor visits Mestalla
At the beginning of January, during the week of the match against Real Madrid CF, two Valencia CF fans were able to meet the squad and accompany the players at Mestalla. In 2017, Abboud Salaam lost his home and his family disappeared under bombing in Iraq. He was left alone and seriously injured. Manhal Al-Qaisi came to rescue him and care for him. In the …
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Boxing for his life. The story of Victor ‘Young’ Perez
“Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the Palace of Sports in Paris, France where 16,000 wildly excited fans are ready for the main event of the evening tonight, October 24th 1931! This match is for the World Flyweight crown!” Have you heard the story of Victor 'Young’ Perez, the flyweight boxing champion who was originally from Tunis but died in the Holoc…
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A light in the darkness of Britain’s Holocaust history
Back in 2019, the BBC reported that Britain’s oldest poppy seller Ron Jones died aged 102. He collected for the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal for more than 30 years, eventually stopping aged 101. The retired steelworker from Newport was a prisoner of war in the Auschwitz concentration camp while serving in the 1st Battalion Welch Regiment during Wor…
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What can Harry Haft teach us?
According to the New York Times, in 1949, ‘24-year-old Harry Haft, wearing purple Everlast trunks with a Star of David stitched on, lasted into the third round when a barrage of blows from Rocky Marciano flattened him.’ The incredible journey of boxer Harry Haft, who died in 2007, is described in ’ Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Mar…
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Melissa Stockwell describes the Paralympian mindset
Melissa Stockwell knew from a young age she wanted to serve her country. After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2002, the Michigan native was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. “It was April 13th of 2004. We’d been in Iraq for just three weeks, and it was a routine convoy that, that specific day, my vehicl…
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Why Ammar Ali loves the thrill of wheelchair fencing
Ammar Ali is a wheelchair fencer who won a silver medal in the men's epee category B at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and is Iraq’s first wheelchair fencing Paralympic medalist. He will compete at Paris 2024, his fourth Paralympic Games . This is his story.
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Ali Al Hamadi becomes first Iraqi to play in Premier League
Ipswich Town forward Ali Al Hamadi made history on Saturday as he became the first Iraqi to play in the Premier League. Al Hamadi entered the action on 74 minutes at Portman Road as his side lost 2-0 to a Mohamed Salah-inspired Liverpool. As Andy Lewis explains, newly promoted Ipswich competed well in the opening 45 minutes but the visiting Reds, who were…
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Native American Olympians featured in Vogue
Jim Thorpe. Billy Mills. Lewis Tewanima. These are just a few Native American athletes who have made history at the Olympics as Christian Allaire writes in Vogue . Thorpe, for one, became the first Native athlete to take home two gold medals for the U.S. back in 1912, when he won the pentathlon and decathlon in Stockholm; in 1964, Mills won the gold medal i…
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Iraqi Children Foundation Announces 2024 Global “IN THEIR SHOES” 5K
The Iraqi Children Foundation (ICF) have announced that the 2024 Global “In Their Shoes” 5K run/walk to benefit Iraqi orphans and vulnerable children will be held on Saturday, September 28, 2024, at Rock Creek Park in the US capital, Washington, DC. Those unable to join in person in Washington, DC, can join the “virtual” 5K instead, and run/walk anywhere …
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Take a dive into Mexico’s most beloved sport
Lucha Libre: The History and Legacy of Mexican Wrestling is scheduled for release on March 18, 2025. As Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com first reported, Artes de México presents Lucha Libre, a historic and cultural dive into the world of Mexico’s most beloved sport. Over the decades, lucha libre has become a symbol of Mexico, transcending the nation’s bord…
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Jordan's Ishaish brothers look to make Olympic boxing history
Jordan's boxing brothers Hussein and Zeyad Ishaish will set a number of firsts when they lace up their gloves in Paris this summer, as Andy Lewis reports. Hussein, the elder of the two at 28, will be competing at his third Games. He reached the quarter-finals at super heavyweight in Rio, where he lost to eventual gold medallist Tony Yoka of France; and…
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Royal Mint unveils 50p celebrating ParalympicsGB and Team GB athletes
Paralympics GB and Team GB athletes are being honoured on an official UK 50p ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as reported by the ParalympicsGB website. The collectable coin has been designed to inspire the nation, featuring an Olympic and Paralympic athlete side by side against a backdrop of the Union Flag. In a special nod to the loc…
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Daughters relive historic moment that changed boxer's life
Sixty years ago, an iconic breakfast took place between two titans in American history, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, and the world was never the same, as MARCA Boxing News explains. On February 27, 1964, Muhammad Ali - then known as Cassius Clay - had just secured a victory against Sonny Liston, becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. The breakfast …
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Meet the US Veteran going for gold in Paris
With a name like Bobby Body, weightlifting was destined to be in his future. But he has carried plenty of weight from his service and injury in the Marine Corps before joining the National Guard and serving in Iraq. Body has not had an easy road to Paris representing Team USA in the Paralympic Games. Abandoned by his mother when he was five, he and his si…
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US Veteran to make debut at Paris Paralympic Games
A U.S. Army Veteran and Brownsville native is headed to his first Paralympic Games this summer. Jason Tabansky is among the world’s top archery athletes who will represent the United States along with other para-athletes in Paris. The Paralympic Games represents athletes with physical disabilities and impairments. They are held every two years, just like …
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Outside of politics, a Palestinian boxer is on his way to the Olympics
To prepare for the Paris Olympics, Palestinian boxer Wassim Abou Sal follows instructions sent by text message from his Cairo-based coach, who is prevented from training his foal in person due to Israeli movement restrictions. At 20, Wassim Abou Sal is preparing to become the first Palestinian boxer to compete in the Olympics after receiving an invitation…
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Boxing brothers lace up for Paris Olympics
Two-time Jordanian Olympic boxer Hussein Ishaish, will join his brother Zeyad Ishaish and fellow boxer Obada Al-Kasbeh on the plane to France this summer. As Grace Goulding explains, this marks the second consecutive Olympics where the siblings will compete side by side, a rare and potentially record-setting achievement in boxing. The Ishaish brothers’ boxi…
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