The Sports Business Daily (subscription required) reports that Greco Roman Wrestling will return to the 2020 Olympics. The vote Sunday brought relief to a combat sports community that rallied around the effort to save the sport from virtual extinction.
Wrestling received a first round majority of International Olympic Community (IOC) votes (49) beating out baseball/softball (24) and squash (22). Despite winning the IOC by a fair margin, the sport’s representatives were grilled with questions ranging from corruption to gender equality. Concerns about wrestling’s governance and the perception that its rules were difficult to understand were reasons why the sport was initially dismissed from the Olympics earlier this year.
When news that it would be dropped from the Olympics came down earlier this year, many MMA fighters with wrestling backgrounds rallied behind efforts to save it. For its part, organizers proposed changes to the sport including adding two women’s weight classes.
Payout Perspective:
The effort to save wrestling from being dropped from the Olympics shows how individuals with a common cause can affect change. Yes that is altruistic to think but the social media effort to save the sport and the many fighters that rallied for support showed how much the sport meant to each. Moreover, amateur youth programs have a better chance of surviving allowing the next generation of wrestlers the opportunity to dream of the chance to compete in the Olympics…or Octagon.
Oregon only has wrestling at oregon state,sw oregon cc(think they ztill do but they are weak haha), southern oregon (naia), and clackamas community college(paging lindland)at the college level anyway. the might u of oregon with all its phil knight nike money can’t even field a wrestling team. thanks title 9. it doesn’t help the olympic cause that its a different style. the us wants its citizens defenseless and pussified that’s why wrestling is dying in america. and if america is the leader of the free world thats awful for the world. Parents would rather give their kids meds and a television than unleash that kid on someone on the mat or god forbid lace gloves up.
What about freestyle? If it’s only Greco-Roman that’s being admitted then Olympic wrestling just got cut in half.