VICE AU - SPORTSRSS feed for https://www.vice.com/en/topic/sportshttps://www.vice.com/en%2Ftopic%2Fsports%3Flocale%3Den_auenFri, 14 Apr 2023 04:26:19 GMT<![CDATA['I’ll Bet On Myself And Wing It': How Australia's Independent Pro Wrestlers Back Themselves To Make It.]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/4a3v33/ill-bet-on-myself-and-wing-it-how-australias-independent-pro-wrestlers-back-themselves-to-make-itFri, 14 Apr 2023 04:26:19 GMTWhen WWE rolled into Los Angeles for WrestleMania 39, it brought with it the eyes of the entire professional wrestling world. Over 133,000 crossed the turnstiles at SoFi Stadium over two nights, seeing stars like John Cena, Becky Lynch and Roman Reigns in action.

But for many, the appeal of WrestleMania weekend was away from the pyrotechnics and arena rock of the WWE empire. Instead, they were drawn to everything around it: a pop-up constellation of smaller independent wrestling shows from promotions based all over the world, bringing together the best talent not signed to WWE.

WrestleMania weekend, and the days leading up to it, is always a variety-filled feast of dream matches and wall-to-wall special events, like Coachella inside a squared circle. It presents an unparalleled opportunity for wrestlers to perform in front of the most diverse pool of fans, promoters and talent scouts. 

As Kyle Fletcher from the tag team Aussie Open puts it, “WrestleMania weekend is a great way for every pro wrestler to gain more notoriety.”

Fletcher knows firsthand: the last time he and tag partner Mark Davis did a WrestleMania weekend, in 2019, Aussie Open were underground sensations – two Australians based in the UK garnering renown for their symbiotic wrestling styles: Davis, a barrel-chested bruiser, and the athletic  Fletcher, a prodigy who moves around the ring at lightspeed They wrestled in nightclubs and hotel ballrooms in front of small but devoted crowds.

In 2023, Aussie Open are headline attractions, holders of one of tag team wrestling’s most prestigious championships, and were booked in basketball stadiums and theatres with some of the biggest wrestling companies in the world. They performed on Ring of Honor’s Supercard of Honor pay-per-view, a crossover event with New Japan Pro Wrestling and Impact Wrestling, and on the fittingly-named WrestleCon Super-Show.

“This trip feels very different to the previous ones because we’re coming in with expectations,” Fletcher said ahead of the weekend. “In a sense it’s easier when you’re coming in and people are seeing you for the first time.”

Sydney-based tag team The Velocities, Jude London and Paris De Silva, were supposed to be seen by US audiences years ago. Their acrobatic style of wrestling made them a word-of-mouth sensation, helped by a viral clip of De Silva’s spectacular Shooting Star DDT finishing move in which he backflips from the top rope towards a standing opponent, catches them in a headlock mid-air and spikes them them onto the canvas in one fluid motion.

In February 2020, The Velocities’ break came: they were invited to wrestle for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, the iconic Californian promotion that WWE stars Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn paid homage to in their WrestleMania main event. A month later, as COVID-19 upended the world, the PWG booking was off and their plans in tatters.

“It was devastating, especially when there was no timeframe of when everything would be back to normal,” said De Silva.

De Silva and London refocused their efforts at home, and wrestled industriously across Australia whenever pandemic restrictions allowed. They had a scintillating trio of bouts with Aussie Open in their hometown promotion Pro Wrestling Australia, as well as two lauded matches with The Natural Classics in Melbourne City Wrestling, and travelled to Newcastle, Canberra and Adelaide for more competition. 

“It’s all about taking a chance on ourselves and seeing where it leads. At times, it does require you to fly yourself out, but that can lead to other opportunities of being flown out by companies,” De Silva said.

“Prior to COVID, we were originally scheduled to be a part of WrestleMania weekend. So for us to have that taken away… we were set that, when the world opened up, we were going everywhere we can.”

As travel abroad started to resume, The Velocities set off for their second shot at making a name for themselves abroad with a European tour in 2022. De Silva and London won championship gold in Ireland and Italy, and took out the Great British Tag League tournament in the prestigious Revolution Pro Wrestling.

On their maiden US tour as a team, De Silva and London faced off with Top Flight, a pair of brothers who are part of All Elite Wrestling, the closest rival WWE has had since the halcyon days of Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling. 

“It was a real test, as we both have a very similar style of high pace, high octane tag team wrestling. But the major thing for us was to show our brand compared to theirs as well as the brand of the Australian scene,” De Silva said.

WrestleMania weekend shows are a strange hybrid between dream holiday, work conference and a series of job interviews in spandex for performers from abroad. Adelaide’s Matt Hayter, who performed in his first WrestleMania weekend, stressed the importance of “looking the part”. 

“You’re going to be tanned, you’re going to be shaved up if that’s your thing. You’re going to look like you genuinely care about what you’re presenting. What you’re presenting is your brand, you’re trying to sell yourself to someone and if you half-arse it, they’re not going to buy it,” he said.

“Why would anyone pay money to see that if you’re not going to even invest money in yourself?”

Hayter bills his character as the “extremely pretty boy that you want to punch in the head but kiss at the same time” and looks precisely as you’d expect a pro wrestler to: tall, golden skin, muscular and with flowing bleach blond hair that runs past his shoulders. 

In January 2023, Hayter announced his “Official Ego Tour” on social media with a sleek poster and a declaration that it was “time to take my sweet juicy cheeks on tour”. Like a band hitting the road, it seemed Hayter had meticulously lined up a set of matches before publicly announcing his intentions to be in the US during the most competitive period for wrestling bookings of the year. 

In reality, all Hayter had booked was his flight to Los Angeles and a seat at WrestleMania, ticking off a “bucket list” item.

“Wrestling was always a goal, but it was pretty much like, let’s see what happens. I’ll bet on myself and wing it,” he said. 

Hayter’s gambit paid off: he wrestled three times in the lead-up to WrestleMania, including twice for Millennium Pro Wrestling, a promotion which he first got a look in with because of two friends from back home. This sort of collegiality among wrestlers may not be universal (Hayter says every locker room has some who “sniff their own farts”), but is common among Australian wrestlers when they’re together abroad.

“Because a few of us have travelled across the world, everyone sort of understands it. Regardless of the confidence that I have or the face that I’m showing, it’s genuinely a little bit scary. Like, I can’t drive myself anywhere if I get in trouble. I’m across the world, you know? So, everyone’s trying to look out for each other.”

When Melbourne’s Aysha took her first tour of the US early in 2023, she benefited in part from the legacy of other Australian acts who are further ahead on the road.

“I ran into people who were like, ‘Hey, do you know this person?’ and I would always know who they were talking about because we’re all pretty well-connected,” Aysha said.

“They’d be like, ‘Oh, do you know Charli Evans? Or Backman? Or Shazza [McKenzie]', everyone knows her there. It helps, because everyone likes them. I had one friend who said, ‘I haven’t met an Australian I didn’t like so don’t fuck it up’.” 

Aysha is already seven years into her professional wrestling journey, having started at Professional Championship Wrestling’s Ferntree Gully training school at 16. She’s a rising star on Melbourne’s scene, wrestling at the famous Corner Hotel for WrestleRock, winning a championship in Renegades of Wrestling, and performing in matches up the east coast as part of Knotfest in March 2023. 

In January 2023, Aysha embarked on an eight-week excursion to the US to train at Flatbacks Wrestling School, a Florida gym run by former WWE tag champ Tyler Breeze and AEW’s Shawn Spears. She saw the trip as a “test” of how she’d handle the rigours of full-time wrestling, committing herself to at least four days of training per week and matches each weekend across the US.

“It was really good to just focus on wrestling, meet all these people and make all these connections. It was life-changing,” she said.

“Going into it, you have all these doubts and fears and anxieties. It’s a big life experience with a lot of build up, but I felt like it paid off the way that I wanted it to.” 

The experience fortified Aysha’s desire to chase a full-time career in pro wrestling, with her sights set on the next WrestleMania weekend in Philadelphia. 

“From what I hear, that’s where there’s a lot of scouts. I think some of the Australians that have been signed were signed because they were on those ‘Mania Weeks. So, that’s the goal next year.” 

In an industry as volatile as professional wrestling it’s impossible to know what the landscape will look like by the next WrestleMania weekend, but it’s a safe bet that Australia will remain well-represented across every corner of the map. 


Follow Reece on Twitter and Instagram.

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4a3v33Reece HookerBrad EspositoWRESTLINGVICE AustraliaAustraliaWWEPro Wrestlingindy wrestlingamericaSports
<![CDATA[Best Job in the World: 'No' Means 'No']]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/epzngk/best-job-in-the-world-no-means-noWed, 06 Jul 2022 05:56:10 GMTActing is one of those weird creative jobs that takes you to very weird places. If you’re an actor looking for work, you could find yourself in the strangest situation of your life at any given time, and, if you’re a booked and busy actor, you’re cool with that.

I should know, I was a child star.

I was in exactly three advertisements as a kid, after being scouted getting Macca’s at Victoria Gardens. The weirdest opportunity was a fathers’ day advertisement for Kmart that saw my siblings and I all giving an ice-cold prop breakfast in bed to our dad and some actor hired to replace my mum, at a stranger’s house, in a stranger’s bedroom, over and over again, all day ‘til they got the shot.

The other weird one was a Metcard advertisement, a 10 hour day that involved my brother and I – decked out in merch, flags and all – pretending to be at the footy, seated on a block of stadium seats that were mounted on a trailer, which was slowly being pulled around the CBD by a truck. We had to stare straight ahead and try to act normal, sometimes we’d simulate cheering.

You get the picture. What i’m trying to say is: Acting, much like most creative gig work, is weird.

Welcome back to Best Job in the World, the series where we ask people all about the weirdest and wildest of worstest job experiences.

Some jobs make you want to die, while some jobs make you question your reality. Some jobs force you to reckon with unreconcilable truths about the patriarchy, and the way Australia’s system fosters an environment of abuse, while encouraging an ideal of violence.

Some jobs force you to learn the truth against your will.

Someone’s gotta do it right? Yeah???

Mick: “No” means “No”

I’m an actor. As an actor, I’ve worked many part-time and casual jobs through the years to keep the dream alive. I’ve sold jeans in retail and wine from call centres. I even went through a brief stint at the Red Cross taking peoples’ blood (nothing quite like the look on a donor’s face when they’d ask “So, how long you been doing this?” and I’d respond, “I’m an actor”, then stick a needle in their veins). I can honestly say most jobs I’ve had for the past ten years have been soul crushing, like being a concierge/valet at Bondi Junction Westfield (ever had a set of Aston Martin keys thrown in your face?), but there’s one that stands out as just bizarre, depraved and completely WTF.

Funnily enough, it was an acting job. Sitting in a pub one afternoon with some mates, an actor friend of mine called me telling me that they’d had someone pull out at the last minute, and was wondering if I was available to come to a four-hour rehearsal, then perform the next day. I jumped at the chance.

The gig? Loosely improvised role-play to educate an audience on certain issues. The issues? Domestic violence and sexual assault under the influence of alcohol, to be precise. The audience? One of Australia’s premier sporting teams.

The messages we were to convey seemed a little on the nose for me: “domestic violence is bad” and “don’t have sex with someone who’s too drunk”.

Myself and two other actors improvised the scenarios for the rest of the afternoon – I think there were three in total. I won’t go into too much detail regarding the content of the scenarios, but the idea was that we’d run the scenarios in front of the team, then a moderator would have a Q&A with them, asking what they saw, and what the right behaviour would have been in those scenarios. Then, we’d redo the scenarios considering the team’s appropriate suggestions.

The day of the performance was where this became the “worst job” I’ve ever had. Being a bystander during the Q&A was like watching grade sixers in their first sex-ed class. The players smirked, jeered, and laughed at each other’s answers.

To be fair, some did their best to take it seriously, but you could tell they were sacrificing some clout by doing so. You could almost smell the toxicity of the room, and it was pungent. At one point, a player gave a great answer, but his wording was a bit off, so the entire team laughed and jeered at him.  That was the final straw for the moderator, who exploded: “HOW DARE YOU” etc. etc.

Seeing the “bros” with their heads hung low after being scolded by a woman in their 60s was, by far, the highlight of the day.

But, in addition to my amusement, I was bewildered.

Before the day had begun, I’d asked myself, “Is this really necessary?”.

After the performance and Q&A I realised, with a whopping thud of cursed enlightenment, that yes, this is absolutely necessary. Here was a group of (mostly) young, incredibly fit, wealthy men in a male dominated and driven culture, who were all, essentially, celebrities.

It occurred to me throughout the day that while they did, on some level, know they shouldn’t be behaving this way, they didn’t necessarily know why.

I heard answers like “it could make the team look bad”, and “you could be suspended”, all consequences and negative things that could happen to them. We were there to teach empathy, and more importantly consent. It was certainly an eye-opener for me to see the cogs turning in the eyes of these men, as they began to comprehend that when a girl messages you on Tinder, it doesn’t mean, when she’s passed out at 3a.m. from the drinks you paid for, that you have carte blanche with her body. Apparently for some, this isn’t a given.

I think education through acting is incredibly important, and I’ve gone on to do more gigs with this company in more corporate and educational settings.

I don’t want to come across as though this job was the worst I’ve ever had because of the nature of the work, or the people I worked with, but because I had to teach a group of grown-ass men that “no” means “no”, and they were genuinely surprised by that information.

Got a weird or worst or wildest job experience? We’d love to hear it. Contact Ari at arielle.richards@gmail.com or via the social links below.

Follow Arielle on Instagram and Twitter.

Read more from VICE Australia and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, This Week Online.

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epzngkArielle RichardsBrad EspositojobsjobWorkWork work workdomestic abusedomestic violencemisogynyconsentSportspatriarchybest job in the worldACTINGactorweird jobsbad jobs
<![CDATA[A Day at the Southern 80, Australia's Batshit 190kph Water Ski Race]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/4awjv9/a-day-at-the-southern-80-australias-batshit-190kph-water-ski-raceMon, 16 May 2022 06:31:42 GMTIf the social calendar of Australia’s south-east was put on a scale, ranging from “conceptually innocuous” to “bat-shit mad”, the Southern 80 would be up there, leaving the B&S balls, the Denny Ute Muster, and the Stawell Gift in its wake. 

Speed boats race a winding 80km stretch of the Murray River from “bridge to bridge” for the four-day event, each towing two brazen water skiers. The elite class of competitors, known as the “Superclass”, have their speed capped at 120 miles per hour. That’s miles. Just under 200 km/hr. Bonkers. The event draws over 500 competitors and hundreds of spectators from around the country. 

In my mind, the Southern 80 was some sort of extreme sport-fuelled countryside Coachella. But imagining the event wasn’t enough. I had to go.

First impressions: Amazing pink speedboat design + a lift in a trailer
First impressions: Amazing pink speedboat design + a lift in a trailer

Two and a half hours from Melbourne, Echuca, the sprawling river town on the Victoria/NSW border and its parallel interstate neighbour, Moama, have been home to the Southern 80 since 1965.

I drove up on Sunday, the final day of the race.

An out-of-place city kid, I knew the best way to tackle the event would be to glean as many life lessons as I possibly could. So, here’s what I learned.

The Southern 80 is an intergenerational event

We spoke to one white-haired, jovial bloke who introduced himself as “Krackers”. He had done his first race at 9-years-old. 

“And he’s 80 now,” laughed his grandson. 

He was actually 60, but sweet Jesus. This was a revelation. He’d only stopped doing the race a few years back because of medical reasons. Now, he was team manager and “trailer bitch” for his adult grandkid’s squad, passing the torch and the like. 

We also met a boat owner named Warren, owner of “The Gun”, who’d driven his team and machine down from the Gold Coast. His life advice to me was to “get involved”. 

“Throw a wetsuit on and get in there, I reckon,” he laughed, “Have a go!”

When I asked him how people usually “get involved”, he confirmed my suspicions that it wasn’t so easy for an outsider. 

“You sort of grow up with it, really,” he said, “Most people come from the industry, or at least their father or someone initiates them. It does cost a fair amount of money”.

the vibes
the vibes

Speedboats are sick

Don’t laugh. This was not something that I was aware of. These water-borne beasts elicit the same emotion on sight as super-fast speedbikes. In fact, they are very much the speedbikes of the water. There were some stand-out vinyl wraps and boat names, my favourites among them included “Hell’s Arsenal”, “The Mistress”, “Extreme Meltdown”, “Corruption”,  and “Public Enemies”. Most names were built on themes of anger, evil, hell and brute force, which was fitting.

speedboats are sick
speedboats are sick

Water Safety Victoria and New South Wales are potentially hiding something

I tried speaking with two kindly blokes from each respective water safety jurisdiction to find out just how dangerous the extreme sport of waterskiing on a river was, but they were cagey.

“We’re not advised to speak on that, sorry,” one gentleman said. 

“But why are you here!” I asked, partly in jest and partly in indignation. I wanted to know about the danger.

“To give general water safety tips, hand out brochures and the like. We aren’t allowed to give you any info.” 

Something was up. But I left it alone. They seemed like nice people.

The Southern 80 is a sportspersons event

I hadn’t realised just how out of my depth I was until I made an incredible gaffe while talking to one of the skiers from “Public Enemies”, Max, whose team ended up placing 19th overall (huge). He was describing all of the “classes” they had done the day before, when I interrupted with, “oh, so you were teaching classes?”

Silly, silly girl. A “class” is a race, in sports terms. But I was there to learn. And Max was nice about it. 

“Is it scary?” I asked, imagining myself towed on skis at 190kph along a winding river behind a boat called “Satan’s Brimstone Vengeance”.

“Well, you don’t want it to be scary. You can have a few… funny moments out there but we got through pretty good today,” he said, “The most important thing is everyone gets through safely.” A fearless gentleman.

"Krackers" and Alex (L) and the entire "Public enemies" team (R)

“Family friendly” means “family friendly”

Make no mistake, this was a family event. The second largest cohort of people, after “blokes”, was kids. Most spectators were parked up at the main watching area on the banks of the Murray, the finish line, chillin’ out in camping chairs, sipping beers, watching the river for the periodical whoosh of a boat and skiers going past. It was all very calm. Which was a nice respite, to be honest. 

Judging by the handful of spectators we spoke to, most people were either there to support friends and family in the race, or for the sportsmanship tilt of it all. A yearly event like the Southern 80 brings communities from across the regions together to socialise and experience one of humanity’s finest activities: watching fast things go round a track. Much like NASCAR. 

Southern 80 tableau
Southern 80 tableau

By late afternoon, the setting of the riverland, Yorta Yorta country, was touched by golden hour, and all very beautiful. It felt almost wholesome. Even the chaotic soundtrack of screaming children, shouting blokes, motorboats, tractors, and the live band had begun to feel normal. 

So that was that. No gnarly accidents, no booze-ups, no furore. I learned to not judge events by their intriguing titles and absolutely batshit stakes.

And that’s everything I learned at the Southern 80. 

On the way back, I learned that a two and a half hour drive through twilight, which quickly turned to inky evening with only the light of my high-beams and an eerie full moon, which led to Sunday city traffic which took the journey up to three hours, was almost a grating enough experience to make me forget everything I had learned. Almost. 

I will never forget the Southern 80 and all that it taught me.

Follow Arielle on Instagram and Twitter.

Read more from VICE Australia.

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4awjv9Arielle RichardsBrad EspositoSportsracingcommunityregionalExtreme Sportswaterskiingboat raceAustraliaAustralia/NZregional australia
<![CDATA[The Horse Girl is Back. Did It Ever Really Leave?]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/g5qvvb/the-horse-girl-is-back-did-it-ever-really-leaveWed, 08 Dec 2021 05:15:48 GMTFew stereotypes are as immediately recognisable as the horse girl. 

Even before the internet, horse girls were prominent in literature, film and TV – from the Saddle Club’s famous trio to Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. When I was younger, a horse girl was someone – usually a pre-teen – who was obsessed with horses. For the most part, horse girls were presented as generally white, middle class, unable to talk about anything but horses, incredibly annoying and, ultimately, cringe. While it has been a long time since I interacted with a “young” horse person, I suspect parts of this definition still ring true. The genre itself is a certified honeypot, guaranteed to capture the hearts of children, set up franchises, prompt sequels, and is almost always certain to make shitloads of money.

Perhaps one of the internet’s purest measurements of cultural capital, Urban Dictionary, gets cruelly specific with the descriptors of a horse girl: “will ‘gallop’ on the track during gym class”, “wears t-shirts with horses on them and tapered denim pants”, and, a personal favourite, “will look down on you because you are not a horse”. 

But the defining characteristics of a horse girl have been waxing and waning in recent years.

In 2018, the Twitter zeitgeist clung to “horse girl energy” as a way to describe someone who is “blissfully clueless about the world”. There didn’t even need to be a horse involved; this was less about horses and more about who you were as a person. It was the hypothetical antithesis to “Big Dick Energy” – a direct rebuke of what was deemed cool by the patriarchal status quo. The horse girl was a mythical figure who dared to say: “No! I will not shut up about the thing I love just because you say it is ‘cringe’”. And even while being bullied relentlessly for it, the horse girls stood their ground. 

Now, the internet is flooded with discourse on the horse girl’s purported rise. But did it ever really fall? Not a runway goes by without a gracious smattering of horse girl aesthetics, whether they emerge in innocent nostalgia for the greener pastures of adolescence, or in kinky looks that bastardise the refined uniform of the equestrian sport. And, as with many subcultures in these strange times, the grown-up horse girl community has found a home on TikTok. 

Of course, the more that people bully you for liking horse riding, the further you lean into it.

Hundreds of videos under the “horse girl” hashtag feature conventionally attractive riders in cute, figure-hugging gear, doing dance trends with their horses or mucking about with friends in the stables. The biggest TikTokker in this realm is Erin Williams, an international dressage rider for Great Britain. With a staggering 3.9 million followers, she’s the definitive example of how horse girls are using the app to make riding hot again.

It doesn’t stop there, though. HorseTok is a strange place. There’s an entire genre of horse-themed “thirst traps”, where stomachs sway and hips grind seductively on leather saddles, with captions like “horse girls do it best”. Simping over Spirit the stallion is quite common – even on “normal” or only slightly horny Tok – but horse girls mostly simp over their own horses. Videos declaring “he’s the only man for me” and “my dad’s not the one you should be afraid of” are all over the internet. The top-ranking horse girl videos feature bikini-clad, in-saddle coordinated dance routines – clips that make it difficult to keep defending horse girl culture, not so much because of the thirst traps themselves but rather the abject heterosexuality of it all. 

Speaking with a former horse girl, Ella, I am pleased to find this is not the rule. “I’m sort of on ‘gay, super-pretty aesthetic horse girl’ TikTok,” they said, linking me to Fiona Snapple and Emmie Sperandeo.

But of course the queerification of horse girl fandom is on TikTok, home of lesbian cottagecore, forestcore and cowpersoncore. Where else would it be? Compared to the insinuating poses, “riding” innuendos and occasional “pick me” energy of hetero HorseTok, this flip side of the genre is wholesome, inviting and deeply comforting.

The Jumping Like A Horse TikTok account is a bold example of horse girl energy on a very public forum. The videos – where the creator runs on all fours like a horse, clearing 1.3 metre jumps – are at once unsettling, enraging, fascinating and impressive. This is about loving something deeply and doing it proudly for the world to see, despite how utterly bizarre it looks to outsiders. This is peak horse girl energy.

As a former inner-city horse girl, the culture’s return has me feeling nostalgic. 

For most of my life, my parents assured me I would grow out of my obsession – but I was ruthlessly determined to do the opposite. I had big dreams of owning my own horse one day, training it up, forging a deep bond and competing in the Olympics. I just had to figure out how to become rich and force my family to uproot to the countryside. It was all totally feasible.

Here’s how the horse girl fandom typically takes someone over: you’re not so much born a horse girl as you are completely indoctrinated into it. Horse-loving is instilled in girls from an incredibly young age; things like My Little Pony and The Saddle Club cultivate a deep obsession with this pastoral lifestyle fantasy. Of course, the more that people bully you for liking horse riding, the further you lean into it. Horse girls are misunderstood – but they only really care about the opinion of their horse anyway.

I was fully indoctrinated by horse girl fiction. From Black Beauty to the Thoroughbred series, I read it all. I would bring my tattered copy of The Black Stallion with me everywhere, cradling it to my chest so people would immediately know I was that girl. The horse girl canon is rife with particular tropes, perfectly put together to inspire a vice-like grip on any young kid looking for something to be interested in. 

In these books, you learn that horse girls are not like the other girls. They’re constantly ridiculed for their chosen sport. Thus, refusing to care about what people think of your horse obsession is a foundational piece of all of this. By the time I started volunteering at the local children's farm in exchange for riding lessons, the wealth of knowledge I had built from my years of reading made me absolutely insufferable

But then high school humbled me, and I finally did grow out of it. My absurd amount of horse knowledge remains latent, mostly useless, somewhere at the back of my brain. A decade of pure rote learning, ages four to fourteen. I sometimes wonder what I could have achieved if I’d allotted my time elsewhere.

The horse girl is an aesthetic, an attitude and a lifestyle, and its return to mainstream fashion is evidence of a growing movement seen online and in our personal lives: We don’t give a fuck about what you think. The cultural shift away from the male gaze and towards the absurd and wholly camp is thrilling, and finding new inspiration to try outlandish ways of dressing has been made possible by creators on platforms like TikTok and Youtube.

Another horse girl I spoke with recently, Eliza, said the mainstreaming of the subculture is mostly to do with models Gigi and Bella Hadid, whose viral Instagram pictures with their horses continue to capture hearts and imaginations worldwide.

“Honestly, I’d almost entirely chalk it up to the Hadids. Bella being on trend while posting horse videos definitely changed things,” Hay said. “But also COVID probably affected it too. People began to idealise the pastoral and rural, connecting with nature and escaping the city.”

This much is obvious: the horse girl fantasy represents an ideal, especially when it comes to access. The truth is that horseback riding is incredibly expensive, and therefore a very privileged sport. Last year in the United States, the equestrian community was challenged by young equestrians to confront the white privilege, gatekeeping mentality and racism it has always harboured. 

During 2020, when people everywhere struggled with loss of income or straight up lost their livelihoods while the affluent complained about having to isolate in their mansions, there was a certain gaucheness to rich people dressing like rich people. But luxury fashion houses have weathered the pandemic and come out at a monetary surplus. Following this, the tropes of rich people's aesthetics have bounced back into fashion, and the equestrian look comes along with the return of “polo”, “preppy” and “tennis at the country club” – evergreen trends, constantly resurfacing in the fashion cycle.

In the fashion world, the horse girl aesthetic spans a spectrum from classically chic to gloriously unhinged. On one end, you have the Hadids: passionate horse girls hanging out at their mom’s huge ranch and outfitted, of course, in luxury riding gear. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have the chaotic horse girl: high camp and mysterious. The girls who get it, get it. The girls who don’t, don’t. Kim Petras’ full Collina Strada look at this year’s Met Gala was one example of the modern horse girl. Tiny Jewish Girl’s never ending quest to blow her audience’s mind with her outlandish personal style is another.

But the unfortunate gendering of “horse girl” belies the universal appeal of the sport. It has led to the harmful stereotype that horse riding is just for girls, and reminds us of the disproportionate mockery that has always been levelled at anything enjoyed by non-men.

The horse girl’s return is thus a victory for the cuties everywhere who choose to gallop to the beat of their own drum. And if to fear cringe is to become cringe, then to embrace horse girl is to become free.

Follow Arielle on TikTok and Instagram.

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g5qvvbArielle RichardsBrad EspositoCultureTikTokAustraliaInternetSub CultureYouthTrendSportshobbies
<![CDATA[A Brief History of Logan Paul Getting His Ass Kicked]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/k7qvgy/logan-paul-boxing-getting-punched-floyd-mayweather-fightSat, 19 Sep 2020 00:29:04 GMTDuring a midwinter appearance on Revolt TV's Drink Champs, former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather casually said that he didn't train at all for his fight against then-UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor. "All I did was pushups and situps. That's all I did," Mayweather said. "Pushups and situps, box a few times, hit the bag a few times [...] Sometimes I wouldn't go to the gym for a week."

Mayweather, who won the fight with a 10th round TKO, said that he didn't even watch any tape of McGregor's previous fights. "My thing is this: I don't have to watch any footage of a fight because I'm Floyd Mayweather," he said. "Everybody's got to watch me."

If that's true, then he could probably skip the pushups, forget the gym even existed, and still be fine against Logan Paul. According to TMZ Sports, Paul is trying to set up a fight against Mayweather, the undefeated (50-0) eleven-time five-division world champion. Paul, a YouTuber who is basically what would happen if a drawing of a dick on a school binder got its wish to become a real boy, told the outlet that he "can't say shit right now" about whether or not the bout is happening. The Fighting News' Mike Feinberg, though, insists that Mayweather has "officially" signed a contract to get in the ring.

The fight is expected to be an exhibition and not a sanctioned fight, which means that it wouldn't affect either man's record and, in a bit of good news for Paul's prefrontal cortex, it also means that the fighters are allowed to wear larger-than-normal gloves and protective headgear. The upcoming fight between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. has been classified as an exhibition, as was Mayweather's last fight against undefeated kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa.

It took Mayweather just over two minutes to knock Nasukawa down three times, which was enough for a first round TKO. Most of us have struggled harder to open a jar of store-bought marinara than Mayweather did getting that knockout—so good luck, Logan!

"The level that Mayweather has reached in the game is obviously top tier," Nicco Diaz, a New York City-based boxing coach told VICE. "You don't get to that level easily. That's decades of work he's put in, and he never really got out of shape. Even with what may be a bit of rust, his ring IQ and the fact that he's stayed in good form, he could win that fight [against Paul] tonight."

Paul has had one amateur fight and one professional bout as a cruiserweight. He fought fellow YouTuber KSI both times, and he didn't win either one. Vox described their first fight, a majority draw, as a "flawlessly executed circus of bullshit." The second, which took place 14 months later, was more of the same, except this time Paul lost.

Although KSI dominated the first three rounds, Paul fucked up a good fourth round by hitting KSI while he was on the mat. He was docked two points, which was enough to give KSI a split-decision win after six rounds. (Paul appealed the points deduction with the California State Athletic Commission, but his appeal was denied. "I quite literally only lost because of my actions," he said in a rare moment of self-awareness.)

As satisfying as it is to see Paul get punched in the face (the main appeal of the recent remake of Valley Girl is that it features Paul getting a blow to the nose), he hasn't boxed since last November. According to Sporting News, he got "knocked out cold" during a spring training session with UFC fighter Paulo Costa. He also spent several months trying to schedule… something with Antonio Brown, the embattled former NFL wide receiver. The fight never went beyond social media shit-talk, a threatened lawsuit from Brown, and Paul's truly unfortunate diss track. ("You ain't caught a pass in like so long/Dropped from your team, boy you're done for.")

"It's not happening," Paul said in the spring. "He DM'd me, and he said something like, 'I'm expecting a national apology [for the track].' And I said, 'I'm sorry you're a bitch.' I really am, that dude needs help."

Earlier this month, Paul issued a press release, teasing his return to the ring in a "major event" that could take place sometime this winter, so he might've been laying the groundwork for this whole Mayweather thing. It also means that he has several months to, you know, maybe realize that it might be a terrible idea.

Some boxing insiders certainly think it is. "It’s scary how bad Logan’s stamina is, and it might be a mistake for him to fight someone like Mayweather," Boxing News 24 wrote. "Logan’s gas tank was running on empty after one round [against KSI]. It was pathetic."

WBC Silver Lightweight Champion Ryan Garcia doesn't seem to think Paul has a chance either. "Logan Paul is fighting Floyd Mayweather," he tweeted. "Prayers going up for Logan." And KSI just thinks it's all bullshit. "My thoughts on Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul," he wrote, attaching a picture of a cap.

Diaz, who said he watched both of Paul's previous fights, was slightly more measured in his assessment. "Honestly, I see zero chance for him with one of the top, if not the top pound-for-pound fighters," he said. "I think Logan will demand more of Mayweather's attention than Nashukawa, but if Floyd goes back to his aggressive ways, he could definitely get him out by the first round. It's all about what kind of fight this becomes. If Logan comes out and tries to box, he loses easily. If he tries to make it a dog fight, he may survive a bit longer."

Either way, he should probably wear the headgear.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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k7qvgyJelisa CastrodaleHilary PollackSportsLogan Paulyoutubersfloyd mayweatherboxing
<![CDATA[The Pandemic Made This Sports Commentator Turn to Narrating Live Porn For the Blind]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/z3eqpa/sports-commentator-porn-cam-girls-video-for-the-blindMon, 27 Jul 2020 02:09:19 GMTSports and sex have way more in common than you might think. Both borrow from the same terminologies, be it talking about bases or scoring. And both (usually) have a lot of sweating, spitting, shaking and swearing involved. And when it comes to live gigs, every moment counts for an audience waiting with bated breath for what comes next.

Which is kind of why this new collaboration makes perfect sense.

ImLive, a porn site which offers its users adult webcam experiences, launched ImLive4TheBlind, a website dedicated to filling the void in the blind community.

As the sports industry takes a massive hit due to the highly contagious nature of COVID-19, the cancellation of several sporting events have left live commentators struggling to search for employment. By penetrating the porn industry, this new campaign is a collision point that effectively uses the unpredictability and excitement of live sports to power live porn for the blind.

Porn, a business built on titillating imagery and emotions, remains an elusive industry for the blind community. Faced with a lack of options to turn to for a quick turn-on, blind people have spent years relying on reddit forums like r/gonewildaudio to satisfy their sexual desires. In the past, initiatives like Porn For The Blind and Pornhub’s “described video” category have tried to fill the gap by producing in-house audio porn to create more options.

The trend of audio porn continues to provide an intriguing avenue for the blind, and even those beyond the community. But since these mostly come in pre-recorded packages, there’s not much scope to mimic the heat and passion of a live cam experience. The need for inclusion of the blind becomes even more pressing as cam girls emerge as the leading stars of peoples’ quarantine fantasies.

“Narration of the experience by a live sports commentator differs from a voiceover artist doing audio porn purely because of the rhythm and cadence we use to describe what’s happening in real-time,” Sean Wheelock, one of the website’s commentators, tells VICE. Wheelock, a 46-year-old who has trained as a radio host since he was 18, feels his vast experience in hosting live sports like soccer and mixed martial arts helps him be as descriptive as possible with his live cam narration, ultimately allowing him to get more immersed in the unpredictability of what’s happening on-screen.

“When it’s scripted, you have to read and react, but here it’s about describing the person and the setting in real-time, at the same pace with which it’s happening, which makes it more plausible. There’s also those pauses that give the cam star space to express themselves.” Wheelock also stresses on the importance of not objectifying any cam girls by “job-shaming” sex workers.

“Using the phallus now, circling onto the vaginal lips, arching back on the bed, her vagina fully shaved, legs splayed for the camera, inserting the phallus,” drones Wheelock with a deadpan voice in one of the live cam sessions, as if casually commenting on soccer players passing around a ball. So far, Wheelock has hosted group sessions, but plans for individual videos are underway.

A typical live cam session on this site consists of Wheelock building up to the salacious stuff through expansive descriptions of the pornstar’s features and their every movement, interspersed with soft moans and seductive giggles from the cam entertainers. In an attempt to be utmost respectful, Wheelock substitutes terms like “boobs” for “breasts”, “ass” for “buttocks”, and “pussy” for “vagina”.

“I’m going with the baseline understanding of human anatomy, and talking about positions and body movements even blind people can identify with,” explains Wheelock when asked about how he describes visual aspects that a blind person may have never come across before. “So instead of talking about the technical details like colours or appearance, I’ll focus on actions that they are all familiar with.”

But given that he is smack in the middle of such an intimate experience, we asked him whether the weirdly voyeuristic experience ever gets awkward or even turning on.

“From all my experience as a commentator, my brain is wired in a way that is removed from the emotions of the experience,” he replies. He points out that even when he was hosting fights, he would often be incredibly friendly with the fighters, and regularly enjoy dinner or drinks with them. “But even if one of my friends wins the fight, I still can’t get excited while I’m on the job. I’m trained to bring in the same neutral perspective even when I’m commentating on live cam sessions surrounded by beautiful women.”

The porn industry has seen a creative renaissance amidst the pandemic, from viral coronavirus porn to cam girls giving long-distance couples tips for video call sex. Porn for the blind with a live sports commentator is yet another addition to the scoreboard, giving play-by-play action a whole new meaning.

Follow Shamani Joshi on Instagram.

This article originally appeared on VICE IN.

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z3eqpaShamani JoshiDhvani SolanipornSexSportsCoronaviruslivecam girlsjobsWork
<![CDATA[Shocking Lawsuit Alleges Hockey Players Were Forced to Bob for Apples in Urine]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/3azad9/shocking-lawsuit-alleges-chl-hockey-players-were-forced-to-bob-for-apples-in-urineTue, 30 Jun 2020 04:50:00 GMTThis article originally appeared on VICE US.

Ryan Munce didn’t fully realize what was happening the first time his teammates abused him.

The then 17-year-old, a goalie for the 2002-2003 Sarnia Sting, walked into the dressing room for practice when another player beckoned at him with one finger, he said.

“Come here, Muncey,” Munce recalled him saying. “Just bend over my knee. I just wanna slap your ass a bit.”

The veterans in the room started yelling at Munce to “do it” and said if he didn’t they’d “beat his ass.” Munce said he then walked over to the player, who caressed his ass before smacking it.

The abuse only grew from there. “That blossomed into it being bare-assed, and then the paddle,” said Munce. “It was ultimately better when the paddle got introduced because at least the physical touch wasn’t there.”

At this time Munce was already a world-class goaltender. He won a gold medal for Canada at the U18 World Juniors in 2003 and was drafted to the NHL in the third round. He should have felt on top of the world, but Munce said he had suicidal thoughts because of the abuse.

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Ryan Munce playing for the Sarnia Sting in 2002. Photo via Ryan Munce.

Horror stories from junior hockey have been prevalent, and reported on, for decades. Yet there have been few consequences over that time. Now a shocking new class-action lawsuit could be the start of a long-overdue reckoning for Canada’s most popular sport.

The suit was brought forward by Munce’s then-teammate and NHL veteran Daniel Carcillo and Lethbridge Hurricanes player Garrette Taylor. The lawsuit alleges that “Canadian major junior hockey has been plagued by rampant hazing, bullying, and abuse of underage players, by coaches, team staff, and senior players.” It names all three major junior hockey leagues in Canada—the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, and the Ontario Hockey League—collectively known as the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), as defendants.

“Rather than respond to or make meaningful attempts to prevent such abuse, the defendants have instead perpetuated a toxic environment,” reads the statement of claim.

The lawsuit alleges a litany of abuse: players were sexually assaulted, forced to masturbate in front of teammates or coaches, made to consume the “urine, saliva, semen, or feces of teammates,” forced into “sexual engagement with animals,” had their genitals tied to heavy objects or dipped in irritants or toxic liquids, and had things forcibly shoved into their anuses.

James Sayce, the lead counsel of the lawsuit, told VICE while there are many details he can’t divulge, “it appears there is a large number of people who want to tell their stories.”

The CHL responded to VICE’s requests for comments by pointing to a statement it released Friday that said it was “deeply troubled by the allegations in the lawsuit.” The league announced it was starting a “Independent Review Panel to thoroughly review the current policies and practices in our leagues that relate to hazing, abuse, harassment and bullying and the allegation that players do not feel comfortable reporting behaviours that contravene these policies.”

The Sarnia Sting did not respond to a request for comment.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. You can read the lawsuit in its entirety below.

Brock McGillis, a former OHL player who was one of the first professional hockey players to come out as gay and is now an advocate for making hockey more inclusive, said he’s not fully confident of the league’s ability to take on the problems raised in the lawsuit effectively.

“You have the same people who have perpetuated the cycle trying to shift the cycle," said McGillis. "It's never gonna work. I've been predicting for over a week that they would just start more task forces."

It’s hard to overstate how important the CHL is to hockey in general, and to the Canadian psyche in particular. Talented teenage hockey players from across Canada and all over the world join the league. They’re expected to leave their families and billet in a new town, usually a small to-mid-sized Canadian city, where they will likely be the biggest sports team the city has to offer.

Despite increasing competition internationally, the CHL is still the most important feeder league in the world for the NHL. More than 30 percent of the players drafted into the NHL in 2019 came from the CHL. Sidney Crosby played for the Rimouski Océanic, Connor McDavid played for the Erie Otters, and Wayne Gretzky played for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. But while the talent in the league is immense, so is the amount of scandal associated with it.

One of the highest profile coaches in the league in the 90s, Graham James, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault in 1997 in regards to more than 300 incidents that took place over 10 years on two specific players. After serving his time and being released in 2000 and pardoned in 2007, James was charged and sentenced again in 2011 after other players including NHL star Theo Fleury came forward. While in prison he plead guilty to another sex assault charge in 2015. He was granted full parole in 2016.

In March, the CHL finally settled a class-action lawsuit over minimum wage payments for $30 million, after the suit dragged on for six years—the CHL denies the players and the league are employers and employees.

Countless other stories have been written about the league’s hazing rituals and its players being charged with sexual assault.

Dr. Kristi Allain, an associate professor in sociology at St. Thomas University who studies how hockey influences national identity, interviewed upwards of 50 professional hockey players from 2002 to 2012 for research on hockey culture. Hazing and sexual violence were brought up consistently by the players.

“It’s an ongoing problem that’s deep-rooted into the culture of hockey and I think it’s been allowed to perpetuate itself because of the insular nature of the institution,” said Allain. “‘What happens in the room, stays in the room’ is kinda their mantra.”

While there are rules against hazing in the league, typically the abuse is kept quiet, said Allain.

The lawsuit mentions players being forced to sit in the shower as other players urinated and spat on them; in another instance, players filled up a cooler with “urine, saliva, and other bodily fluids” and forced other players to bob for apples in it.

Munce, who intends to add his name to the lawsuit, told VICE he wasn’t forced to bob for apples but did see it happen and remembered the mix being dark with chewing tobacco spit.

In another incident that Munce recalled, also mentioned in the lawsuit, a rookie was tied up while naked and players beat him with a belt. When the coach walked in to tell them to tone it down, the players pressured the coach into hitting the teen himself, which gave the actions a “huge endorsement,” Munce said.

The lawsuit also details a disturbing but well-known ritual for junior teams. During road trips, the lawsuit claims, a group of rookies get stripped naked and forced into the team bus washroom for lengthy periods of time. Sometimes players poured chewing tobacco, urine, and spit onto them through the vents.

“This is something in the hockey community that every single person knows about and just assumed was normal,” said Munce. “Everyone knows about the ‘hotbox.’”

Munce said since he wasn’t there for the initial hotbox, he was forced to strip and wait in the bathroom naked by himself.

Taylor, the lawsuit’s other plaintiff, said he was forced to dress up in women’s clothing and made to drink to the point of passing out. These sort of parties, often dubbed “rookie parties,” occur at all levels of junior hockey (and in other sports). Taylor said the rookies were subjected to “racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs” daily and forced to fight their teammates.

Journalist Laura Robinson published Crossing the Line, a book that detailed hazing and sexual violence in junior hockey in 1998. Many of the acts included, as well as those outlined in a CBC documentary from that time, are similar to those mentioned in the lawsuit. Hazing in the league goes back generations. Legendary Montreal Canadiens goalie (and federal politician) Ken Dryden, who played in the NHL from 1970-1979, told the Fifth Estate in 1997 that he was always terrified of hazing.

In her book, Robinson found that hazing and abuse happen at all levels of hockey. In 2011, a 15-year-old player for the Neepawa Natives who played junior ‘A’ in Manitoba told his parents about how he and other rookies were forced to walk around the dressing room with water bottles taped to their scrotums while a coach was in the room. The incident sparked an RCMP investigation, although no charges were laid, and league discipline.

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Ryan Munce and his wife in 2020. Photo courtesy of Ryan Munce

McGillis said he doesn’t believe the league is willing to change.

“This stuff still exists; it just might not be as overt as it used to be,” McGillis told VICE News. “I’m tired of hockey people patting themselves on the back for minimal improvements. It’s microscopic shifts when massive shifts are needed.”

Players who speak out are often ostracized by the players and staff for betraying the room and therefore become “problems in the room.” Many go from being hazed to doing the hazing. The problem becomes cyclical, as the rookies become the vets, and the vets become the coaches.

“There are very few people (running) the CHL who haven’t been part of the league since they were young children,” said Allain. “It’s a system of abuse that reproduces itself through generations. These systems sort of go in unchecked when there’s nobody else in the system to raise questions.”

The mantra of keeping what happens behind dressing room doors quiet is something that starts even before junior hockey. Both McGillis and Munce said they were fully ingrained in that culture by the time they hit the CHL. Allain said she has a family member whose 10-year-old boy is going into the sport and was told by a coach not to tell his parents what happened between the players and coaches.

Every person interviewed for this story said they were confident that many talented players, who could have had great NHL careers, walked away from the sport because of the culture of hazing and abuse.

Former NHL player, Akim Aliu, who is Black, came forward earlier this year with a story about how his AHL coach Bill Peters said the N-word in front of him while denigrating hip-hop in 2009. Peters resigned from his NHL coaching position last year when the story surfaced. In a separate incident, Aliu refused to get in the hotbox in 2005 during a CHL road trip and a few days later, during practice, had seven teeth knocked out by a cross-check delivered from Steve Downie, a right-winger who would go one to have a lengthy (and controversial) NHL career. The two publicly fought on camera following the hit and it was widely reported to be in retribution for Alui’s refusal to be hazed. Downie hasn’t commented on the incident.

“There will be more reckonings for coaches, more incidents highlighting the dark side of hockey culture,” Aliu wrote in a recent piece for the Player’s Tribune. “Hockey is not unique. It has the same problems that plague our whole world. There’s not much we can do about that right now.

“What we can do is be honest.”

Allain said while she stopped interviewing players in 2012, she sees no reason for something so deeply rooted in hockey culture to have disappeared.

Since the time of the Sting allegations, the CHL has implemented several programs to deal with hazing. This includes a zero-tolerance police for hazing across all three leagues. Some newer players, such as Vancouver Canucks captain Bo Horvat, have said the abuse they received was minimal. Other players and coaches have claimed hazing has practically been phased out.

Still, other players say otherwise. Recently Eric Guest, a former Kitchener Rangers player who last played for the team in 2019, said that while at a party with teammates, older players forced him to snort cocaine. McGillis said he hears horror stories from the locker room all the time. Carcillo previously told VICE he received stories almost daily outlining abuse in hockey.

Despite games being some of the biggest attractions in their towns and being aired on Sportsnet, as well as lucrative sponsorship deals for the league, the typically teenage CHL players aren’t paid for their labour. The players, still maturing both mentally and physically, are taken from their parents and thrust into the waiting hands of a league that, after decades, is just finally starting to address the problem.

It’s important to remember who the adults in the room are.

“It always starts from the top down,” said Munce. “It starts from the coaching staff, it starts from Hockey Canada, it starts from the owners and the directors of CHL. It starts up there and trickles down. It always does. You’re not going to ask the kids to change and that’ll change the adult situation. It needs to come from the top.”

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

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3azad9Mack LamoureuxJosh VisserNatasha GrzincicNewsCanadaHockeyCanadian NewsNHLchldaniel carcilloabusehazingSportsWorld Newsworldnews
<![CDATA[Over 150 U.S. College Athletes Contracted Coronavirus After Being Pressured to Practice]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/g5p5jm/over-150-us-college-athletes-contracted-coronavirus-after-being-pressured-to-practiceSun, 28 Jun 2020 23:25:47 GMTThis article originally appeared on VICE US.

More than 150 players at NCAA Division I revenue sports have tested positive for coronavirus, weeks after returning to their university campuses for voluntary workouts in early June. While not every program is disclosing positive test numbers, Clemson, Kansas State, the University of Texas, and the University of Iowa each report more than a dozen confirmed cases of coronavirus among the athletes who’ve come back to campus so far. Clemson is currently reporting the highest number, with 28 total confirmed cases, 23 of which are football players preparing for a still-scheduled 2020 season.

How, or why, are schools being allowed to put players in a situation where so many of them are getting sick? Via a loophole: Division I schools are currently prohibited from resuming official practices, but athletic departments have started so-called “voluntary workouts,” or preseason strength and conditioning sessions that aren’t led by coaches. On paper, voluntary workouts are optional, but coaches and former college athletes say it's not so black and white. Athletes are effectively being forced to put themselves at risk, and in one case even sign waivers that potentially indemnify the school if they get sick. This is all in spite of the fact that no one has figured out yet how college games will even happen this fall.

Football games are currently scheduled to begin on August 29; Anthony Fauci recently said it’s up to league officials to decide whether that actually happens. It’s impossible to imagine that new cases will decline dramatically in two months. So for now, athletes are traveling back to campus to carry on practicing amid the pandemic on the chance that the NCAA and its member schools will ultimately choose their multi-billion dollar bottom line over the health of uncompensated college athletes.

The NCAA gave clearance to all Division I programs to start voluntary workouts on June 1, and since then, all five conferences in the Division set their own start dates and began the process of bringing athletes back to campus. In safety guidelines for returning to sports during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, called the Core Principles of Resocialization of Collegiate Sport, the NCAA outlines gateway criteria that must be locally met before schools can resume official practices, fall camps, and competitions.

These criteria include “a downward trajectory of documented cases of COVID-19 within a 14-day period or a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percentage of total tests within a 14-day period.” With cases of coronavirus still rising in the United States, and reaching record-breaking highs in many of the states that are home to NCAA Division I schools, athletic departments, by these guidelines, are currently prohibited from resuming official organized practices or camps, hence the “voluntary” workouts.

"As a player, you want to show that you are committed, and that you are ready and you are excited to be a part of the team."

Voluntary workouts, sometimes called “captain” or “athlete-led practices,” are a regular component of college football preseason (and NCAA sports in general). In non-pandemic years, they are allowed to start nine weeks before the beginning of fall camp. The NCAA defines voluntary activities as any that student-athletes request or initiate themselves, and isn’t recorded for attendance or participation for the purposes of coaching staff. But as several NCAA coaches recently told CBS Sports, these rules are commonly bent and broken.

Are you a college athlete, returning to play during the pandemic? We'd love to hear from you. Contact the writer at hannah.smothers@vice.com, or securely via Signal at +1 (908) 485-7021.

“There are things that are quote-unquote voluntary, but they really aren’t all that voluntary,” Sam Acho, a former outside linebacker for the University of Texas, told VICE. “As a player, you want to show that you are committed, and that you are ready and you are excited to be a part of the team. Even at the professional level we have voluntary workouts, and 90-plus percent of the players show up. Not because they want to, but because they feel that if they don’t show up, the coaches will look at them as if they aren’t committed to the team.”

College coaches also admit that the term ‘voluntary” is misleading. “‘Voluntary,' sadly in our college game, has been a very loose term," Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley told CBS. "The reality is there are different institutions in different conferences that allow you to do a different amount or some just look the other way." OU plans to begin voluntary workouts on July 1, the latest start date for any program in the Big 12 Conference. Several OU players have tested positive, but aren’t yet back on campus.

Corey Robinson, a former quarterback for Notre Dame, reiterated in a recent NBC Sports broadcast that “voluntary” is a misnomer. “When it comes to voluntary, we had a saying back in the day called ‘mandatory optional,’” Robinson said. “And I think that’s what this is. You’re going to have people wondering, ‘oh, the SEC is coming back June 1, but then the Big Ten is thinking about June 8.’ People are gonna look for any edge they can get. I feel like I’d be pressured into wanting to play or wanting not to play.”

In emailed responses to an inquiry from VICE to 39 schools currently reporting positive cases of coronavirus among athletes, the 17 athletic departments that responded said that scholarships aren’t at risk if players decline to return for voluntary workouts. As of 2015, the NCAA prohibits scholarship funds from being revoked, reduced, or canceled for health or athletics reasons. But none of the schools responded to a question about how departments and coaches would reassure student-athletes that lesser but still-serious punishments, like losing playing time and or starting positions, wouldn’t happen if players declined to return for voluntary workouts.

“There is not a requirement to attend voluntary strength & conditioning workouts,” John Bianco, associate athletics director at the University of Texas, told VICE in an email. “Any discussions involving a specific student-athlete’s request relating to that would remain private and be handled on a case-by-case basis with each of the respective sports staffs.” As of June 18, or just four days after starting voluntary workouts, 13 Longhorn players had tested positive for coronavirus, with ten additional players in quarantine for probable contact.

While voluntary workout attendance isn’t supposed to be recorded for coaches, Acho said coaches and teammates can still exert pressure to be at voluntary activities. “It’s hard to prove that, as a player, you were punished because you didn’t show up,” he said. “The coach could just say, you’re not performing well.” Punishments could include diminished playing time or the loss of a starting position.

So far, only one NCAA team has formally sought protections for their health at workouts and practices, and against retaliation from coaches if they choose not to attend. Thirty members of the UCLA Bruins submitted a signed petition to coaching staff on June 19, which demands third-party oversight for following health guidelines and protections for any whistleblowers who report violations. The final point called for the “ability to make decisions with regard to personal health without consequences in terms of loss of scholarship or retaliation from coaches in any form. That is, it should be within an athlete’s discretion to put his or her health at risk and attend a sports related event without consequences.”

On the flip side, at least five programs have required returning athletes to sign so-called “pledges” initiated by the athletic department. A handful of schools, including Ohio State University, are requiring pledges to be signed by players as they start voluntary workouts during the ongoing pandemic. Each pledge emphasizes players’ responsibility to help prevent the spread of coronavirus by agreeing to testing and any necessary quarantine, and includes an understanding that there’s no guarantee against contracting coronavirus during athletic activities.

The most widely covered of these is Ohio State’s “Buckeye Pledge.” The Ohio State athletics department maintained in an email to VICE that the Buckeye Pledge is “ is not being looked at as a legal document,” despite that it requires a signature, and a parent or guardian signature for any athlete under 18. “It is intended as an educational component for student-athletes and their parents as part of our return to workouts protocols,” Jerry Emig, associate athletics director at Ohio State, said via email. “It is an acknowledgement by our student-athletes of their responsibility to keep themselves, fellow students and the Ohio State community safe during this crisis.”

Acho looks at the pledges as waivers, designed to absolve the school from responsibility if a player gets sick or suffers complications from coronavirus. “It’s ridiculous to ask an 18 year old to sign a waiver, so he can go play for a school and put himself at risk, and the coach gets to stand on the sideline or in his office,” he said.

Lawyers who reviewed the document for Cleveland.com believe the pledges could be legally defensible. “At a minimum it could be construed to be comparable to a permission slip, which does not contain legalese," Marc Edelman, a professor at the City University of New York whose specialties include sports law, said. "Some courts have held up permission slips as a legal waiver.”

Even without signed pledges, athletic departments should very much understand the risks placed on athletes by returning to voluntary workouts for a season that may not even exist. In a recent teleconference, the University of Florida, where at least two athletes have tested positive for coronavirus since returning to campus, David Werner, a UF basketball coach, outlined, in detail, the ways in which the school is trying to prevent any outbreaks. “The risk mitigation is really the key part of what we’re trying to do,” Werner said. “We’re trying to keep our positives down, obviously.”

But at the same time, the University of Florida also seems to be ok with the reality that no amount of precaution can prevent athletes from getting sick, if they are back on campus. “Dating back to April, we’ve had a total of 11 student-athletes from several of our teams test positive,” Steve McClain, senior associate athletics director, said via email. “As we’ve said before, we will have positive tests and with guidance from UF Health, we feel we are well positioned to manage those cases.”

Bianco at the University of Texas similarly said he “fully expected that we'd have some COVID-19 cases,” and also that the athletic department “fully expect[s] the number of cases within the team to level off and continue to improve as we go forward and prepare for the 2020 Football season.”

As cases and hospitalizations in Texas and surrounding states surge and break new records every day, it’s not clear how reasonable it is to expect there to be a 2020 season, or what anyone is actually practicing for. There’s certainly a financial incentive to holding the season as planned. Walt Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, where the University of Alabama and Bryant Denny Stadium are located, recently said his city would be financially devastated without Bama football.

“It’s about a hotel owner being able to pay his or her employees,” Maddox told WBRC in Tuscaloosa. “It’s about a restaurant being able to pay their small business loan. It’s about a family trying to make their mortgage payment. It’s more than just a game.”

"I’d be wondering, why is everyone else quarantining, but I’m defying government rules to go play a game?"

The financial incentives for coaches, athletic departments, universities, and state and city economies stop short of reaching the unpaid players. “The mayor of Tuscaloosa says the city wouldn’t be able to survive if Bama didn’t have a season—that says something,” Acho said. “These players are getting paid zero dollars. Zero. Some get a chance to go to the NFL, but not all. Many get injured; we all know the percentages of players who make it to the NFL. That head coach is getting paid millions.”

Acho is ten years removed from his college football career and is among the less than four percent of players who get drafted into the NFL. Thinking of what players are going through now, as they return to voluntary workouts as the pandemic continues, he sees the dangers he was blind to as a college player.

“If I was 18, 19 years old, internally, I would be very frustrated and confused,” he said. “I’d be wondering, why is everyone else quarantining, but I’m defying government rules to go play a game? But I probably wouldn’t speak up, because I’m trying to make it to the NFL. I don’t want the coach to think I’m not committed.”

Follow Hannah Smothers on Twitter.

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g5p5jmHannah SmothersCasey Johnstoncollege footballCoronavirusCOVID-19SportsathletesNCAAcollege basketballUnpaid labor
<![CDATA[Germany Is Hosting ‘Ghost’ Soccer Games and the Fans Aren't Happy]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/935a43/germany-is-hosting-ghost-soccer-games-and-the-fans-arent-happySun, 21 Jun 2020 22:11:25 GMT

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

DORTMUND — When soccer clubs Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund meet on the pitch it’s called “The Classic,” and it’s a big deal in German soccer.

The success of Germany’s lockdown means alongside shops, restaurants, and museums, soccer is now back on the pitch. And that means means Bayern and Dortmund can finally battle it out for top of the league.

If you think fans would be happy, you’re wrong. The rules governing soccer’s return ban all fans from attending games.

“Without fans, it's not football. Football lives from the fans,” said Aymen Gabsi, a die-hard Dortmund supporter.

Sports journalist Sebastian Wessling, is one of the lucky few allowed in the stadium. He told VICE News the matches have been branded “geister-spiele,” or ghost games.

The players are also adapting to a new reality. “There's no handshakes. Even if they celebrate goals, they're supposed not to hug, not to touch” Wessling said.

As meeting people from more than one other household is still strictly ”verboten,” most supporters are watching the game at home. But the Dortmund fan club “Totale Offensive” has a solution: a socially distanced viewing for 30 people in a hall designed for 150.

“For me I miss the feeling in the stadium,” said fan club member and season ticket holder Benjamin Sohn.

Unfortunately the game didn't go well for Sohn — Dortmund lost by a goal.

“We would have had a chance had our fans been there. But there's nothing to do about it now,” he said.

Dortmund’s supporters may not be happy, but the Bundesliga is expanding its viewership. Sports leagues all over the world, like the NFL, are watching Germany’s experiment. It’s at least been encouraging enough for soccer leagues in Italy, Spain, and the U.K. to restart their seasons in June.

“I think there's a lot that can be replicated,” Wessling said. “But I think the most important thing is always that the pandemic is under control, wherever you want to play.”

Cover: Soccer players of both teams play the game in front of empty spectator stands (Photo by Marcel Kusch/picture alliance via Getty Images)

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935a43Andy HaywardBrian JosephsVICE NewsworldnewsSports
<![CDATA[Pro Athletes Who Love Weed Are Taking Cannabis Sponsorships]]>https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/g5pbam/pro-athletes-who-love-weed-are-taking-cannabis-sponsorshipsWed, 27 May 2020 06:03:33 GMTOn a typical Saturday, at 4:30 am, Boulder, Colorado-based competitive ultramarathoner Flavie Dokken takes 5mg of Wana Recreational Tarts, puts on her running shoes, and heads out for a five-hour run. But Dokken is not your typical stoner, she uses cannabis as part of her workout routine and she is sponsored by Wana Brands, a cannabis company that produces cannabis-infused products. Dokken told Vice that the gummies help her tune into her breathing. Although Dokken uses THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive element of cannabis) during training, she stops using it a week before race day because of drug testing.

“Active lifestyle” might not be a set of words commonly associated with cannabis use. But cannabis companies are trying to change that by sponsoring athletes and athletic teams, getting them to post photos of products on their Instagram grids or put brand stickers on their athletic equipment, in order to gain visibility with the athletes’ fans.

Brands like Nike, Saucony, and New Balance, synonymous with the running industry, do not allow their athletes to be associated with cannabis. But that doesn’t mean they never partake. Dokken said she knows of a handful who do. Not only are they secretive about their use, but they also avoid affiliating with her for fear of guilt by association. She said that these athletes, “won’t follow me on Instagram,” but she also states that when she wears her Wana gear on the trails in Colorado, “people give me a high-five, which is awesome.”

Even as big brands don’t want to talk about cannabis use, it is increasingly officially sanctioned for competitive professional and amateur athletes: In 2018, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code removed CBD from their list of banned substances, and allows an athlete to have THC in their system during a random out-of-competition drug test. But THC is still a prohibited substance for post-race or in-competition drug tests; this all means athletes are fine to use cannabis during the off-season and even during training, but cannot compete with the drug in their system.

In 2018, Canada legalized marijuana with the Cannabis Act, which prohibits athletes from being sponsored by cannabis companies. Canadian MMA fighter Elias Theodorou is trying to change that. He uses cannabis for pain management for bilateral neuropathy in his upper extremities (chronic pain in his wrists, elbows, upper neck, and spine). “Doctor prescribed cannabis is the best medical option to manage my pain,” he told VICE. “Traditional, first-line medications like pain killers, opioids, and NSAIDs have all had detrimental side-effects to my body as both a patient and athlete.”

Theodorou, who has been sponsored by Pert Plus, Mattel, and Coors Light, explained, “This fight is not only about working with cannabis companies, but also the need to knock down the barriers and negative perception other companies may have with cannabis.”

Mendi, a CBD startup company, has “athlete ambassadors” who help promote their products, including soccer player and Women’s World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe, and her girlfriend, WNBA player Sue Bird. The athlete ambassadors receive Mendi products to promote on their social channels and attend Mendi events. The company was founded by Rapinoe’s twin sister, Rachael, who is also a former pro soccer player. Although CBD is banned in the WNBA, Bird uses it in her off-season. She told New York Magazine, “It’s great for recovery and it relaxes me. I usually take it at night so I can sleep, which helps with recovery, and have had amazing results.”

While the use of cannabis might seem diametrically opposed to what an athlete values—inaction versus action—calm, relaxation, and rest are integral to athletes’ overall success and well-being. But athletes don’t even limit use to off-hours in our modern times: In 2019, The University of Colorado Boulder released a study on over 600 runners with legalized cannabis that found 80 percent of cannabis users mixed workouts with cannabis use. Although cannabis is not a performance-enhancing drug, Dr. Rosemary Mazanet, Chief Scientific Officer of Columbia Care, claimed to VICE it can help diminish performance anxiety. “You're able to be more in the moment and have more fun, to be more limber, to be more flexible,” said Manazet.

Pulmonologist Vandana A. Patel stressed to VICE via email that smoking cannabis can negatively impact an athlete’s performance. “Inhaling cannabis can cause structural lung injuries, like building air pockets in the lung which can rupture under increased physical stress.” Because of this, many athletes, like Dokken, stick to edibles.

The owners of the Oregon-based dispensary Tokyo Starfish all previously worked in the snowboarding industry before they transitioned into opening a dispensary. Tokyo Starfish-sponsored professional snowboarder, Max Warbington explained that the dispensary focuses on the lifestyle aspect of snowboarding rather than the performance aspect.

Tokyo Starfish-sponsored snowboarder Nora Beck told VICE that she uses cannabis during snowboarding when she needs to relax. She explains, “It’s like you’re on hyperdrive and you just need to turn the volume down a little bit.”

“Tokyo Starfish is actually invested in snowboarding and they understand that I'm out there doing my job as a pro snowboarder and just the fact that I have the Tokyo sticker that's like a total bonus for them,” Warbington said. As a pro snowboarder sponsored by Tokyo Starfish, Warbington sends the company videos and photos throughout the winter. He also wears their T-shirts and hoodies and markets them to snowboarding fans on his social media.

When asked whether he feels like there’s a stigma as an athlete sponsored by a cannabis company, he replied, “I think they're probably always will be [a stigma] just the same as there's a stigma with alcohol because it's a substance that people abuse.”

In a phone interview with VICE, Warbington said he is particularly conscious of his image. “I definitely don't want to push it [cannabis] on the youth and that's why I always like to preach that.” He does not allow Tokyo Starfish to post images on their social media of him smoking pot, though Warbington sometimes posts a picture of a joint in his personal Instagram stories. He said, “I always second-guess it every time because of my influence.”

Brands like Tokyo Starfish and Wana are trying to combat negative associations with cannabis. They want the public to affiliate the recreational drug with an active lifestyle. Warbington said it’s really important to him that people know he and his Tokyo Starfish teammates do not personify the “lazy stoner” stereotype. Far from it. “We’re out here smoking weed,” he said. “We're the first person up [on the slopes in the morning] and the last one to leave the mountain.”

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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g5pbamDeana BiancoCasey JohnstonWeedSportsathletesponsorshipwanatokyo starfishmendiMegan Rapinoe