Brainless IOC Drops Wrestling From 2020 Olympic Games – Money Grab Backlash Begins
Help Save Olympic Wrestling! Please sign this petition to put pressure on the IOC to overturn their decision to drop wrestling from the Olympics in 2020
Why would the IOC decide to remove the original game that basically started the Olympics?
The answer is because it is a total money grab, and the corrupt IOC is trying to remove all of the sports that America does well in. Baseball was the previous sport to be removed from the Olympics, for the sole reason that other countries cannot compete with the United States.
You will undoubtedly see a HUGE backlash aimed at the IOC in response to this idiotic move, and I predict that once the wave of anger and hate mail comes rolling into the IOC, Wrestling will be added back as a permanent sport of the Olympics.
IOC leaders have dropped wrestling for the 2020 Games in a surprise decision to scrap one of the oldest sports on the Olympic program.
The IOC executive board decided Tuesday to retain modern pentathlon — the event considered most at risk — and remove wrestling instead from its list of core sports.
The decision, announced by the IOC, was first reported by The Associated Press.
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.
Wrestling featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year’s London Olympics.
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 general assembly in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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.
The IOC program commission report analyzed more than three dozen 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.
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.
Modern pentathlon combines fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting — the five skills required of a 19th century cavalry officer. The sport’s governing body, the UIPM, has been lobbying hard to protect its Olympic status, and the efforts apparently paid off.
UIPM President Klaus Schormann had considered traveling from Germany to Lausanne for the decision, but decided to stay away.
“The Olympic movement always needs history,” Schormann told the AP ahead of the IOC decision. “You cannot just say we look only at the future. You can have a future when you are stable on the basic part of history. We are continuing to develop, to renovate, to be innovative and creative. We are very proud of what we achieved so far and want to deliver this as well for the next generations in 2020.”
We know there are a LOT of angry wrestlers out there. (us included) So we urge all wrestlers, and people who love the sport of wrestling, to contact the IOC and as respectfully as possible express your disapproval with their decision to remove wrestling from the 2020 Olympics.
I.O.C.
Château de Vidy
Case postale 356
1001 Lausanne
Switzerland
Phone +41 21 621 61 11
Fax +41 21 621 62 16
#SaveOlympicWrestling
- Mr Ching-Kuo WU – TPE (Chinese Taipei)
- Mr Willi KALTSCHMITT LUJÁN – GUA (Guatemala)
- Count Jacques ROGGE – BEL (Belgium)
- Mr Thomas BACH – GER (Germany)
- Sir Craig REEDIE – GBR (Great Britain)
- Dr René FASEL – SUI (Switzerland)
- Mr Sam RAMSAMY – RSA (South Africa)
- Mr Patrick Joseph HICKEY – IRL (Ireland)
- Mrs Gunilla LINDBERG – SWE (Sweden)
- Ms Nawal EL MOUTAWAKEL – MAR (Morocco)
- Mr Ser Miang NG – SIN (Singapore)
- Mr John D. COATES, AC – AUS (Australia)
- Mr Juan Antonio SAMARANCH JR – ESP (Spain)
- Mr Sergey BUBKA – UKR (Ukraine)
- Mrs Claudia BOKEL – GER (Germany)
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