WRESTLING WITH Tokyo
By Joe Misuraca Photos Yanni
M
ount Eliza local, John Boyle, 86, not only ran a liquor shop on Main Street in Mornington in his working days, but he was also an Olympian wrestler. The ex-Olympian who competed in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, was supposed to attend the swearing in of the Australian Olympic wrestling team on 9 July for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, but was not able to due to it being held in Melbourne’s CBD. “I wasn’t sure whether they were going to send [an Australian Olympic wrestling] team,” he said. Usually, the wrestling team would travel interstate and overseas to train and prepare for the Olympic games.
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8 | PENINSULA
August 2021
“I am very surprised, with the limitations they have been working with here [due to COVID], that they have been able to put another team together,” he said. “The association has been urging all the old Olympians to make our presence felt one way or another.” It’s to help introduce rural and regional Australians to wrestling because many Aussie Olympians are from country towns. While he was a student at St Kevin’s College in Toorak, John dabbled in football and boxing. He would train in the gym, and it was there that he saw wrestlers training. The sport immediately appealed to him, so he took it up as a hobby. continued page 10...