IOC board recommends dropping wrestling from Summer Olympics program in 2020

IOC board recommends dropping wrestling from Summer Olympics program in 2020

How can you not call shenanigans on this one? The Boston Globe's article hit the key points right on the head:

1. "Wrestling has most of the important qualities among the 39 criteria that the IOC’s program commission considered in its report. The biggest one is universality — how many countries on how many continents practice the sport, and how many of them are competitive at the Olympic level. By that standard, wrestling should have been immune. More than 70 nations, from Algeria to Vietnam, competed in the 18 freestyle, Greco-Roman, and women’s events in London last summer, and 29 of them won medals. Mongolia may not have a field hockey team or anyone who can fence, swim, ride, shoot, and run on the same day, but it had a female wrestler good enough to make the podium."

2. "International Olympic Committee’s executive board decided Tuesday to recommend scrapping wrestling, which only goes back to antiquity. By any empirical or historical yardstick, wrestling belongs as one of the Games’ 25 core sports. It is a classic, simple, inexpensive undertaking that is easy to understand and televise, and it makes for extraordinary human drama."

If it had been my decision, I would have chosen to move it to the Winter Games rather than to dump it. The ancients used to do it outdoors, but modern wrestling is an indoor sport which does not require or benefit from summer weather.

What bothers me is that the high sheriffs of the Olympics seem to prefer exhibitions, where the officials decide who win, to actual sports decided by the competitors themselves. This allows politics to triumph over athletics and encourages corruption. "I'll give a high score to your figure skater (synchronized swimmer, gymnast, etc.) if you return the favor. And let's both downgrade the people from ... (insert country here)." I grant that an infection from the disease of corruption is practically a job requirement for any Olympic official, but the true sports like rowing or track and field (and wrestling, for the most part) are almost immune to that particular illness.

If it were my decision as absolute ruler of the world, I would eliminate every so-called sport where the winner is entirely determined by a bunch of people voting. That crap belongs on American Idol and Dancing With the Stars, not in the Olympics. Unfortunately for me, those activities, like gymnastics and figure skating, are some of the most popular with TV viewers, and therefore advertisers. In short, I have a better chance of becoming the new pope than to be selected as an Olympics official.