Wrestling, one of the most ancient and traditional Olympic sports, was dropped from the Summer Games in a stunning and widely criticized decision Tuesday by the International Olympic Committee.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling will be contested at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but they may be excluded from the 2020 Summer Games.
Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling will be contested at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but they will be excluded from the 2020 Summer Games, for which a host city has not yet been named, the Olympic committee said Tuesday.
The decision to drop wrestling was made by secret ballot by the committee’s 15-member executive board at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The exact vote and the reasons for the decision were not given in detail.
There is a chance that the Olympic committee can reverse that decision in May, when it considers a 26th sport to add to the 2020 Games. A final decision will be made in September, but wrestling’s Olympic future seems doubtful, said veteran observers of the Games.
In recent years the I.O.C. has expressed concern about the size of the Summer Games and wanted to cap the number of athletes at about 10,500. It has also said it wants to enhance its modernity by drawing younger viewers among the international television audience. On Tuesday the Olympic committee said in a statement that it wanted to ensure that it remained “relevant to sports fans of all generations.”
Olympic-style wrestling, with its amateur roots and absence of visibility except during the Games, lacks superstars with widespread international acclaim like Lionel Messi in soccer, Kobe Bryant in basketball and Tiger Woods in golf. And the popularity of Olympic-style wrestling in the United States is far surpassed by the staged bombast of professional wrestling.
Sports like snowboarding have been added to the Winter Games to broaden the audience. Golf and rugby will be added to the 2016 Rio Games. Among the sports that wrestling must compete with for future inclusion are climbing, rollerblading and wakeboarding.
The committee may have also grown frustrated that Greco-Roman wrestling did not include women, experts said. Women began participating in freestyle wrestling at the 2004 Athens Games.
Politics also play an inevitable role in the workings of the I.O.C. Among the sports surviving Tuesday’s vote was modern pentathlon, also threatened and less popular internationally than wrestling. But modern pentathlon, a five-event sport that includes shooting, horseback riding and running, was invented by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games. And it is supported by Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., son of the former Olympic Committee president and a member of its board.
Mark Adams, a spokesman for the I.O.C., told reporters in Lausanne that Tuesday’s vote was a “process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics.” He also 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.”
Wrestling’s world governing body, known by its initials as FILA and based in Switzerland, said it was “greatly astonished” by Tuesday’s decision and would take “all necessary measures” to persuade the I.O.C. to keep the sport in the Summer Games.
The dropping of wrestling faced immediate and widespread criticism.
“I think this is a really stupid decision,” the Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. Wrestling, he said, “was in the ancient Olympics.” He added: “It has been in the modern Olympics since 1896. In London, 29 different countries won medals. This is a popular sport.”
Wrestling seemed in many ways to be the perfect Olympic sport. It is as fundamental as running; held in 180 countries from the United States to Russia to India to Iran; and contested in a small area that is easily followed on television. And, unlike soccer and basketball, the Olympics are considered the sport’s ultimate competition.
“When you think of the Olympics, you think of wrestling,” said Cael Sanderson, the wrestling coach at Penn State and a 2004 Olympic champion. “It was a marquee event in ancient Greece and in the modern Games. After running, it was the next sport to be part of the Games. Like track and field, the Olympics are the highest level. Some sports, it’s just not as special.”
Olympics Moves to Drop Wrestling in 2020
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Olympics Moves to Drop Wrestling in 2020
