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IOC Drops Wrestling From 2020 Olympics - ABC News‏

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=18473870


IOC Drops Wrestling in Surprise Move


By STEPHEN WILSON AP Sports Writer

Feb 12, 2013, 8:22 AM


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.

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97,000 signatures needed by March 14th
smokeycabin
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Loc: Shawnee Kansas Help get wrestling reinstated as an Olympic sport! Go to http://wh.gov/dT8D and sign the petition. (2/12/13)


https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/user/re...Z14pwSe0hLqFOk8


Coach Sean
#2199

I hope 100,000 signatures helps alot.

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Did you see that Eckenbacherswartzendruber?

Lawrence Elite Wrestling Club
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http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/wrestl...bad-call-021213

No wrestling in Olympics? Unreal


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Updated Feb 12, 2013 6:59 PM ET


In a bureaucratic decision that ranks right up there on the “stupid and unneeded mistake” scale, along with New Coke and Napoleon invading Russia, the International Olympic Committee voted on Tuesday to drop wrestling from the Olympic program in the 2020 Summer Games, tossing away a constant of the modern Olympics since the ancient Greek Games were revived in 1896.


FOX SPORTS POLL


Which Olympic sport deserved most to be dropped for 2020?
Field hockey
Modern pentathlon
Taekwondo
Wrestling




On the surface, this is simply a dumb, shortsighted decision, based on fleeting things like television ratings.

But deeper down, there’s a stench of something unsavory here. It feels like another politically motivated decision by the most political organization in sports.

Consider the factors that went into the IOC voting wrestling out from a final group that included modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey, according to The Associated Press:

• The vote was held by secret ballot.

• IOC president Jacques Rogge did not vote.

• Modern pentathlon, the sport considered most at risk of being dropped from the Games (and a far less popular sport than wrestling), had a huge lobbying effort to keep its sport. “We have promised things and we have delivered,” the president of modern pentathlon’s governing body, Klaus Schormann, said Tuesday.

• Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC president, lobbied to keep modern pentathlon over wrestling. He also happens to be the vice president of the international governing body for modern pentathlon, and a member of the IOC board.

Add all those factors up and the IOC’s decision to drop wrestling feels more like a Tammany Hall decision made in a smoky back room than a decision by an organization that pretends to stand for everything right and pure in the sports world.

“Something’s underhanded here, and I don’t like it,” Scott Casber, who hosts a nationally syndicated television and radio show on wrestling, told FOXSports.com. “It just cries out 'Dirty player' to me. How can you take a sport as weak and ill-conceived as modern pentathlon and pick it instead of wrestling? I’m just heartbroken over this whole thing.”


WRESTLING IS OUT
The IOC has voted to drop wrestling from the 2020 Olympics. Read more here.

The America wrestling world erupted in anger in defense of a sport that’s brought the United States 125 Olympic medals over its history. Both “IOC” and “Olympics” began trending on Twitter, and there weren’t many congratulatory tweets in there.

“It's not over yet. We will keep fighting to save the sport we love. Don't stop dreaming and don't stop believing,” tweeted Jordan Burroughs, who won wrestling gold at the 2012 Games. Bruce Braley, a congressman from the prominent wrestling state of Iowa, tweeted, “Outrageous decision by @IOCMedia @Olympics to drop Wrestling from the Olympics. One of @Olympics oldest sports — absurd.”

Even Scott Blackmun, the CEO of the United States Olympic Committee, said Tuesday he was surprised about the decision, given the "history and tradition of wrestling, and its popularity and universality."

Dan Gable, who won gold in the 1972 Munich Games and is one of America’s most recognizable wrestlers, told The Des Moines Register he plans to fight the decision before September’s final vote by the IOC determines whether wrestling will officially be excluded from the 2020 Games. Eight sports, now including wrestling, will be applying for a single opening in 2020. The other sports are a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu.

You read that correctly: Wushu, a sport you’ve probably never heard of. (It’s a martial art, hugely popular in China. But still.)

It’s heartening to hear that the IOC is considering replacing one of the world’s first combat sports, a sport that was part of the ancient Olympics, with wakeboarding, a sport more fit for the X Games than the Olympic Games. It’s wonderful that wrestling will be out but sports with much more ancient Olympic tradition will be in — sports like table tennis, which first entered the Olympic lexicon in 1988, or taekwondo, first in the Games in 2000.

It’s fantastic that the IOC is ignoring so many iconic Olympic moments that wrestling has brought us: Gable’s perfect Summer Olympics in 1972 where he didn’t surrender a single point, Dave Schultz’s gold medal in 1984 in Los Angeles, Aleksandr Karelin’s three-Olympic streak of gold medals in Greco-Roman that was broken in 2000 by American Rulon Gardner — staging one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history. And last summer, when Burroughs predicted he’d win a gold medal, won his gold, and then, moments after beating his Iranian opponent, hugged the Iranian and smiled for photographs with him, a rare moment of unity between the two countries.

“We’re going to fight this,” Kurt Angle, who provided another stirring Olympic wrestling moment with his gold medal in 1996, told FOXSports.com on Tuesday. “They can’t just drop it. They’re keeping badminton and that sport where you jump on a trampoline, and they’re dropping wrestling. It’s just crazy. I don’t know what this world is coming to. Things are changing.”





US ATHLETES TO WATCH
The Winter Olympics in Sochi are just a year away. See which American athletes to watch as we count down to the Games.

It’s true: Things are changing. Wrestling doesn’t garner the TV ratings of, say, beach volleyball. Mixed-martial arts has exploded in popularity in the past 20 years and is hoping to get into the Olympics itself at some point, and that’s a sport with much in common with wrestling. Wrestling in America has had a mess of a national governing body in recent decades, though it appears to have gotten back on track and is now giving a $250,000 award to American gold medalists.

Things might be changing. That doesn’t mean we should run roughshod over tradition. The IOC’s decision makes no sense outside of the politically charged climate where the IOC lives.

Shame on them all.

Last edited by smokeycabin; 02/13/13 12:32 AM.
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IOC President didnt vote but his son was a big pusher on the side of pentathlon.. Pretty easy to see what happened. Our country can fix a Presidential election god knows the IOC can do what they want

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http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/olympic-wrestlers-rulon-gardner-and-henry-cejudo/n33956/

Tonight Show
PurpleDad
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Registered: February, 16 2005
Posts: 165 I don't usually stay up this late....but I read where Rulon Gardner and Henry Cejudo were going to be guests on Jay Leno.

They were on to bring light to the IOC Executive decision. Good interview by Jay....Rulon and Henry were great too.

Good to see some real main stream exposure.
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http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/olympic-wrestlers-rulon-gardner-and-henry-cejudo/n33956/

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