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WEIO 2008

Scenes from the 2008 World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in Fairbanks.

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Photo by Eric Engman

Leroy Shangin let out a piercing “gah!” and fell to his back after bouts in the ear pull, each time looking like he had reached his threshold of pain.

And that was after the times that he won.

The ear pull, a contest created to simulate the sting of frostbite, even had the judges cringing on Friday at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in Carlson Center.

The game pits two athletes face-to-face with about a foot between them with twine looped around each’s ear. They lean backward until the loop falls off one’s ear or someone gives in.

Shangin was the most animated of the athletes, quickly pacing in circles and clapping, doing what he could to suppress the agony in his maroon-flushed ears.

After winning the right to face Jeff Satterfield in the final round, Shangin again paced frantically, this time with two baggies of ice against his head. Satterfield waited coolly, giving his challenger whatever time he needed to prepare.

When Shangin was ready, Satterfield won in two pulls without hardly a wince.

Satterfield, a Native American originally from the Lower 48, might have gotten a better fight out of Shangin if the young man from Perryville didn’t have to survive some of the toughest matches of the afternoon.

Unlike many of the matches that end when the twine gets pulled off an opponents ear, Shengin had to go through three straight matches in which the loop stayed hooked to both competitors, leaving it up to who can withstand the loop’s pinch the longest.

But he has a tried-and-true way to block out the anguish.

“I try not to think about the match or the person,” he said. “I try to think about my family because if I think about family, then all the pain goes away.”

Shangin was probably thinking of his family while he said that, since he was reinserting earrings while his ears were still a deep violet at the top.

There was no bad blood between the contestants, but there certainy was blood. Some competitors held a paper towel over wounds on one ear while pulling with the other ear.

Others, such as Arnold Olanna, were lucky enough to only have a few false alarms.

“I thought I was bleeding again, but it’s just sweat,” he said, running a finger along the back of his ear. “I hope.”

A few participants were like Matthew Evans, who didn’t plan on signing up, but somehow found themselves on the floor grimacing with a cherry-red ear.

Evans hadn’t participated since Binion, his younger cousin, defeated him in a match that was photographed for ESPN the Magazine.

This year, 13-year-old Binion egged him on, and he registered for the event.

Evans made it deep into the bracket, going through matches so strenuous his entire shaved head turned red. After a while, simply placing the string was excruciating to him.

“I tried to work through the pain, but that last one, right when I put it on my ear, it went right into that groove,” Evans said. “We weren’t even pulling, and I could just feel it. It just stung all through my body.”

That moment came right before Evans lost to his young cousin again.

Binion, who took fourth place, joked that he talked Evans into competing again so he could beat him one more time.

“Easy win,” he said with a chuckle.

Women’s ear pull

With her ears still too swollen to hear well, Karen Zaukar said her first-place finish in the ear pull was like a late present for her birthday, which was on Thursday.

“Does it hurt?” friend Waunita Hootch asked Zaukar. Hootch extended her hand.

“Don’t touch it!” Zaukar yelped.

“Ooh, that’s not just red. That’s purple,” Hootch said of Zaukar’s right ear.

Zaukar’s ears will have to recover quickly, as she’s set to compete in the ear weight pull today — carrying 16 pounds in the same manner she pulled her opponents heads on Friday.

“It’s going to be a killer for the ear weight,” she said, “but I placed.”

She took the top spot with a simple strategy.

“I just closed my eyes and was like, ‘Let’s get this over with,’” she said.