30 June 2010
BEIRUT: Lebanon will host its first cowboy competition on August 18-22, organizers told press Monday as part of a sports tourism initiative designed to help develop sports, agriculture, ecology and tourism.
Keserwan-based ranch resort El Rancho organizes the rodeo show with the help of genuine American cowboys while Lebanese officials supporting the event seeing it also as an investment opportunity.
Sports and Youth Minister Ali Abdullah, whose ministry sponsors the event, told journalists: “We expect financial return on investment as early as next year,” he said, “because profitability is necessary for any project to progress.”
Abdullah considers the rodeo competition project to be also eco-tourism, as El Rancho advertisement talks up the “unspoiled wilderness” of Keserwan mountains.
Abdullah said that while the rodeo competition would take place over five days, the two last days would be dedicated to festivals taken care for by Tourism Ministry.
Organizers recruited a fistful of genuine American cowboys for the project and a troop of 17 native Americans to give visitors a West Wild background during their visit. While Cheyenne and Apache entertainers admitted to performing ancestral dances and singing only as part of touring shows, cowboys are professional rodeo competitors dressed in Texan hats, ranch boots and traditional blue jeans. They lack only a Colt on their belts.
Philipp Kiesner, a 50-year old Minnesota rodeo champion, and cowgirl spouse Julia helped to organize the rodeo competition. They say it should give visitors a taste of such rodeo events as saddle bronc and bareback riding, steer wrestling, tie down and team roping, women barrel racing along with bull riding. “The real deal,” Kiesner insists, “no different than in the US.”
Everybody wants to ride bulls because it is dangerous and exciting, he says. “People want to feel how close they can get to that line beyond which they’re no [longer in control,” he smiles. Keisner will not have US bulls to give visitors to ride though.
“They’re 1,600 pounds, jump 3 to 4 feet in the air and kick up to 12 feet,” he laughs, “nobody here can ride that!”
Organizers insist that their livestock are well-treated.
“They’re fed until they’re full because we want them to buck their best,” he claims. Kiesner insists he does not make horses buck, nor train them to. “Some just don’t want to be ridden and will not stop bucking, we use them for rodeo competition,” he says.
Kiesner’s health record as a cowboy is impressive; he has broken his wrist three times, his shoulder twice, his collar bone, ribs on both sides and jaw. “Don’t forget the seven teeth,” he says, before adding: “Well, I’m still in perfect shape!”
Copyright The Daily Star 2010.
