IOC Dropps Wrestling from 2020 Olympics

..LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — IOC leaders dropped wrestling from the Olympic program on Tuesday, a surprise decision that removes one of the oldest Olympic sports from the 2020 Games.

The IOC executive board decided to retain modern pentathlon — the event considered most at risk — and remove wrestling instead from its list of 25 "core sports."

The IOC board acted after reviewing the 26 sports on the current Olympic program. Eliminating one sport allows the International Olympic Committee to add a new sport to the program later this year.

Wrestling, which combines freestyle and Greco-Roman events, goes back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling, it is what's right with the 25 core sports."

Adams said the decision was made by secret ballot over several rounds, with members voting each time on which sport should not be included in the core group. IOC President Jacques Rogge did not vote.

Wrestling was voted out from a final group that also included modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey, officials familiar with the vote told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the voting details were not made public.

The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission report that analyzed 39 criteria, including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board was also subject to political, emotional and sentimental factors.

The international wrestling federation, known by the French acronym FILA, is headed by Raphael Martinetti and is based in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. Calls to the federation for comment were not immediately returned.

Wrestling featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year's London Olympics. Women's wrestling was added to the Olympics at the 2004 Athens Games.

Wrestling will now join seven other sports in applying for inclusion in 2020. The others are a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu. They will be vying for a single opening in 2020.

The IOC executive board will meet in May in St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to propose for 2020 inclusion. The final vote will be made at the IOC session, or general assembly, in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It is extremely unlikely that wrestling would be voted back in so soon after being removed by the executive board.

"Today's decision is not final," Adams said. "The session is sovereign and the session will make the final decision."

The last sports removed from the Olympics were baseball and softball, voted out by the IOC in 2005 and off the program since the 2008 Beijing Games. Golf and rugby will be joining the program at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Previously considered under the closest scrutiny was modern pentathlon, which has been on the Olympic program since the 1912 Stockholm Games. It was created by French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, and combines fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting.

Klaus Schormann, president of governing body UIPM, lobbied hard to protect his sport's Olympic status and it paid off in the end.

"We have promised things and we have delivered," he said after Tuesday's decision. "That gives me a great feeling. It also gives me new energy to develop our sport further and never give up."

Modern pentathlon also benefited from the work of Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC president who is a UIPM vice president and member of the IOC board.

"We were considered weak in some of the scores in the program commission report but strong in others," Samaranch told the AP. "We played our cards to the best of our ability and stressed the positives. Tradition is one of our strongest assets, but we are also a multi-sport discipline that produces very complete people."

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They are going to have a nother vote in Russia on a sport to add. Go to http://www.olympic.org/ioc scroll to the bottom of the page and press the FAQ at the bottom of the pop up window it lets you ask a question. Everyone needs to ask the board to vote for it during the Russia meeting. I'm sure a potition will be started soon but until then this is one way we can let the IOC know how much wrestling is wanted.

So wrestling somehow falls below Canoe/Kayak, Archery, Table Tennis, Badmitton, Sailing, Shooting, and Archery? None of those are even sports, but rather recreational activities. I did not even know those were all in the olympics but I looked them up and they are...

I don't get it, the oldest sport in the olympics with support from Europe, the far east, Canada, Central America, all the former Russian countries.

Amazing...This is crap!

The IOC is as bad or worse than the U.N.

Money can buy you whatever you want......

This doesn't surprise me, especially in this world of "even though you don't work hard, we're going to give you something and take care of you". Wrestling rewards those who work the hardest, and it is almost like they are trying to slap hard work in the face, just to spite us..........

Doug hit it there, and any time the US gains ground, we have to be put back. Guess they are trying to replace athleticism and promote the "games" part in the Olympic games. Next up after having added racewalking, they will add the game of Monopoly. My bet is China will be good at that.

The pope resigns and now the IOC drops the greatest (one of the oldest) Olympic sports. Maybe they know more about the end of the world then we do.

Guess its time turn the Dave Schultz into the Olympic replacement and use it to grow internationally.

The other vote is selecting one of 8 different sports to add back including wrestling. It's a joke that the sport has to be clustered w/ the likes of sport climbing and wushu...whatever the hell they are. I guess keeping X-Game type sports such as BMX biking and skateboarding is a way to "keep up with the times". Guess I'm gonna buy a book on Wushu and start teaching my kid that and throw wrestling to the curb. Ridiculous.

This is terrible news.. how this affects the Olympic training facility and the freestyle/ greco participation numbers. How are we going to get the best kids/ men to be on our world teams when the pinnacle of our sport is gone. A sad day for the wrestling community..

Taken from the Huffington Post:

"The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission report that analyzed 39 criteria, including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity."

TV ratings = Joke. They have historically put wrestling on over night. I remember staying up LATE as a kid to watch the very limited coverage. It seems this past Olympics we had better coverage in the US I'd guess due to the viral effect of Jordan Burroughs. I wonder what other countries coverage is like?

Global participation = Joke. Of course you are going to have more people participate in the likes of some of the other "sports" already mentioned. If it's easier aren't more people going to participate?

Anti-doping policy. Isn't this consistent across all core sports?

The Russian vote that is upcoming is going to vote on what to add in place of wrestling. As if this doesn't hurt enough, I'm going to say that adding in a "new" sport along the lines of Cheese Rolling or Kickball is going to hurt a lot worse. Even adding tug-of-war requires more than some of these others!

This is horrible news for our sport. I hope that the decision is changed in the next meeting.
But if it is not, How will this affect the Freestyle and Greco in the United States? With our School Aged Sports being Folkstyle the "Olympic Styles" seem to have held on here for that reason. Will it become "International Styles"? I assume we will still quest to compete at the World Level.

Everything to do with the IOC is corrupt.