Cousin Enters Arm Wrestling Tournament

My family has a tradition every Christmas Night. After all the adults in the family are drunk on eggnog and wine and pass out in their sleeping arrangements at our family's winter resort, us younger cousins and siblings get together and have an arm wrestling tournament. The rules ae simple. The participants are the 8 oldest (or 16 oldest, depending on how many want to participate) people who want to join, and they face each other in a round robin knockout style tournament where the oldest participant faces the youngest participant, second oldest faces second youngest, etc. in one fall matches until the final 2 face off in a best of 3 falls arm wrestling match to crown the new champion. We didn't let anyone under 18 to participate because we felt it was a waste of time.

The first year I joined was when I was 19, I faced off in the first round against the eventual winner. My cousin Andrew was 23 and he was jacked. 6'2 and almost 200 pounds. He was the oldest of the bunch and easily beat me in the first round before climbing the ranks and being crowned champion. His reign didn't end there, however. He also won in the upcoming 2 years, the second of which was against me in the final. I was 21 and not the biggest guy there, but luckily for me a couple of my older cousins couldn't make it and one of them was too drunk to beat me in the semi-finals, so I made it to face off against Andrew in a fight that was closer than I had expected it to be. But ultimately he won out easily 2-0.

But that loss had me determined to actually win the entire thing next year. My New Year's Resolution was to go to the gym at least twice a week, and I did it. Come next year I stood at 5'11 and 175 pounds, and I planned on winning the entire thing. I got to the final where I faced, yet again, Andrew. He was planning on this year being his 4th win, but I had other ideas. The match was really close but I managed to edge out in the 3rd fall, winning 2-1 and being the first person to defeat Andrew in 4 years. After I won he congratulated me and announced his retirement from the competition, paving the way for me to easily win again next year.

So here we are. I was the 3rd oldest that year, but I was still the favorite going in, which meant that not a lot of people fancied their chances and we ended up only getting 10 people wanting to join. We picked the 8 oldest and we were ready to start the 3-round tournament, but then we heard a voice.

"Excuse me," we all turned around to figure out what was going on. "I'm actually 12 days older than Kevin, which means I'm the last entrant, not him." The voice was coming from my second cousin Kelsey. She was just 18 years and 9 months old at the time, and she was right. She was older than Kevin and thus she should've taken his place. We looked at each other awkwardly trying to decide what to do. We had nothing against women joining the tournament. Many have over the years, and one even made it to the final once. Three years ago, my half aunt Amy, who was the youngest of the 'adults' at just 32 years old, overheard us talking about arm wrestling while grabbing water from the kitchen. She asked if she could join and luckily we were 1 entrant short from a 16 person tournament. She was really into fitness so she had a toned body, 5'10 and about 145 pounds, which seemed impressive to us so we allowed her in. She ended up winning her first 3 matches, including a quarter final win over me. She got real close and the 2 years afterwards we had a spike in female entrants. This year though, none of them seemed up for it. Well, none except Kelsey.