Jenelle Hamilton is a local secretary, grad student, single mom and Girl Scout leader. She also is an internationally competitive sumo fighter. Susan Valot caught up with her for NPR's Only a Game website. Excerpt:



The practice starts. Jenelle’s long braid of brown hair flies up as she slams her hands into an opponent’s neck, using her gymnast frame to push him out of the ring. Obviously, Jenelle is not a stereotypical sumo wrestler.

“Everyone has the opportunity to win,” she says. “Just because you’re like me, 130 pounds, and you go against a competitor that’s 300-plus pounds — you know, three times my bodyweight — I still have the opportunity to win. So it takes a lot of strength, agility.”

I wanted to interview other women who train with Jenelle. They pretty much don’t exist. She mostly travels to international competitions on her own, meeting teammates from other parts of the country.

“For us, our minor leagues, if you would say, is the national competition,” Jenelle says. “We don’t have the competitions throughout the year that the men get to go to because none of us show up.”

I totally would drop the gloves — I mean, bow politely and try to fight Jenelle on that mat. But I’m nursing a fractured wrist and broken toe, so I decide for the sake of my doctor’s bill, probably better not to. Jenelle won gold in lightweight and bronze in the women’s openweight division at the US Sumo Open last year. And she’s heading to the Sumo World Championships in Japan later this summer.

