As the sound of champagne corks popping accompany the finalist’s fatigued shrieks of delight, thoughts inevitably turn to the night ahead; but once the celebratory haze has been lifted, the mind starts to turn to future plans. For those not quite prepared to begin their lifetime as an investment banker, the standard, glorified sight-seeing gap year awaits.
Not for freshly graduated Keble theology student Richard Massey, however. Richard decided to travel halfway across the world to remote villages of Africa, South America and Asia. No Kodak disposable here though, as he was to compete in tribal games with the inhabitants of those regions.
‘I was on a sports email list and I saw an advert by chance; I was just about to finish my finals and go on a gap year so it was perfect timing when it came along. It sounded amazing. They asked what I was willing to do, and I said yes to all the questions.’
Given the advert claimed that, ‘you will get to wrestle people in the Amazon and run up a mountain’, his enthusiasm was understandable.
BBC’s programme, Last Man Standing, consisted of a year long expedition around the globe to partake in eight sporting festivals, ranging from stick fighting in South Africa to cricket in the South Pacific; Richard was one of six athletes competing, with all of them heralding from different physical disciplines.
Richard, coming from a rugby and cricketing background, was physically inferior to the majority of his competition, and especially American strongman Brad Johnson.
‘Brad is about three times my size’, Richard joked. Despite this apparent difference, the athletes competed against each other, as well as the local tribe in their sporting festival, with the best performer declared the victor.
One concern for Richard before beginning the competition was how genuine the television programme would be. ‘I thought there would be a lot of fake parts and rehearsals and that it might show the bad aspects of TV, but when you are in the Amazon surrounded by ten naked warriors, you know it’s entirely real.’
So real, that the athletes themselves rarely knew their next location beforehand. ‘The BBC team were quite discreet about that; we weren’t told where we were going and sometimes we only found out by overhearing the head pilot announce it. There was an enormous surprise factor every time.’
Unfortunately for Richard, truth did not extend to the BBC’s portrayal of him. His weekly introduction in the programme consisted of the archetypal Oxford stereotype: a montage of punting, croquet playing and cycling in academic gown, with classical music awkwardly tacked on for good measure. Richard, however, took it positively.
‘Anyone from Oxford would think, “does this guy run around in sub-fusc every day?”, but I suppose stereotyping is part of TV. It’s fine though, it was part of the deal. I was aware I could be caricatured, and I was, given the images of me in my flailing gown under the Bridge of Sighs! I don’t begrudge the editors though.’
Yet the Oxford graduate defied their expectations by sensationally winning the Wolof wrestling festival in Senegal. It offered a simple concept: grapple your opponent to the floor without falling yourself. Richard’s win was somewhat aided by the introduction of weight classification, a measure unseen in the other seven contests.
His opening bout in Senegal instantly pitted Richard against fellow competitor and Harvard student, Corey Rennell, whom he dispatched quickly. This victory, followed by the defeat of a local, ensured his two successes in Senegal bettered the other athletes’ attempts. But it was not merely his victory which brings him fond memories.
‘One of the stand out moments was when I was with Corey in the middle of the arena. The atmosphere was just electric. There were seven or eight hundred people watching.
It was incredible and there’s nothing I can equate to it: there were megaphones everywhere; singing, drumming, dancing, screaming; it was exhausting being there. To be in the middle of the arena was exceptional; an extraordinary feeling.’
Wrestling his way to a win in Senegal was not enough for Richard to claim the overall title of ‘Last Man Standing’. Perhaps with more luck during his second-placed finish in Trobriand’s unconventional brand of cricket he could have notched up another win. His strong showing in Papa New Guinea’s forty-eight hour canoe race was also in vein.
These two festivals alone highlight the variation between events; but one thing that was consistent throughout the sports was the need for technique over pure aggression.
Eventual winner Jason applied a visibly more aggressive attitude to the tasks and arguably this is what won him the overall title. Richard refutes this.
When the latter won in Senegal his tutor claimed it was due to his impeccable technique, a notion which Richard agrees with: ‘It was such a great thing to hear people say that my technique had won me the Senegalese wrestling. I did think, during this event particularly, that I was learning very quickly. From the first day, when I was pretty rubbish, to the last when I won, more than any other place I made a lot of strides.’
Asked whether violence was prioritised over sport in these tribal festivals, he responded, ‘the villagers weren’t aggressive. It wasn’t violent, and no one got hurt that badly.’
Far from being aggressive, the inhabitants of the small villages strived to make their unlikely guests as comfortable as possible, and the former Keble man enthusiastically cites this as a highlight of the trip.
‘Every single time without exception we made a bond with the family looking after us, and it was special; it wasn’t a normal relationship because normally you can speak the language.
That created a barrier for 90% of the day – it was like playing charades, trying to explain everything through strange actions.’ The emotional tone in his voice confirms the uniqueness of the bond as he describes the time with his hosts in India, where there was no possibility of communicating via speech.
‘The Sumi language was hardest and yet when I left I started to cry. The goodbye was overwhelming and there was real understanding and appreciation between us.’
Whilst embracing the inhabitants came easily, embracing their culture proved more difficult. ‘The most intense experience throughout my time abroad was killing a pig. I really felt awful doing it and was pretty unprepared: someone just shoved a spear at me by chance. We’re used to animals being pets here, which in their eyes, was ridiculous.’
Other experiences, such as drinking a specialist ‘good luck’ potion intended to then be regurgitated, as well as having his leg scoured with razor-sharp piranha teeth until he bled, made the experience pretty hard for him to fathom at times. However, the killing of the pig still remains most vivid in his memory. ‘I didn’t take any satisfaction from it. I didn’t expect to have to do things like that.’
Unquestionably, the alacrity of Massey demonstrates that the journey was very much weighted towards the positive, with a highlight being the friendship struck with his fellow athletes. ‘I’m still in touch with the other athletes; we developed an unusual and unique kind of friendship.
When I first began I felt alone, I didn’t know any of the crew and I felt completely isolated and defenceless, but that soon changed. There was no reason our paths should have crossed – we are from different parts of life – but we all got on and that in turn got us through. They were such good companions.’
Although Richard didn’t finish ‘last man standing’, he’s still standing tall, and certainly doesn’t regret that original application. ‘The start of the whole process was quite unusual.
The first few days were like an Oxford Freshers’ Week: hectic, with big highs and lows.’ There may be certain similarities to Oxford life, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever see a semi-naked, Papa New Guinean warrior punting down the River Isis.
