Feb.12, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that wrestling be dropped from the list of core sports for the Summer Olympic and replacing them with the additional sports.
These sports include baseball/softball, squash, wushu, karate, sports climbing, roller sports, golf, rugby and wakeboarding.
I’m no major wrestling fan but even I know that wrestling has a long tradition with roots going back to the ancient Olympic Games as evident from surviving relics from the era. In the modern era, it was one of the sports featured in the first modern Olympics in 1896.
In addition, it has been one of the core sports in the Summer Olympics, with the exception of 1990.
In short, it has a long history with the Olympics since the first games so the decision by the Executive Board doesn’t make sense at the least, considering that wrestling is one of the popular sports in the world.
However, considering the fact that the International Olympic Committee has to consider more than one factor in holding the Olympics, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. So looking at the IOC website showing the announcement of recommendation for dropping wrestling from the Summer Olympic, It’s annoying to see, especially to see a sport that has been a part of the Olympics since its founding been recommended to be dropped.
The IOC website says, “In an effort to ensure the Olympic Games remain relevant to sports fans of all generations…,” which itself sounds reasonable when you think about it, especially considering the popularity of gridiron, soccer, and baseball. It’s not covered by the major networks nor does a quick search on google for wrestling bring up any links to professional wrestling websites.
The very first link is for free online WWE TV, so maybe the IOC decision isn’t wrong, as it’s seem that something is clearly wrong here. It may be that interest in wrestling as a sport is on the decline.
This article has been edited to fix a minor typo. 2/28/2013 9:52 p.m.