Late last year the International Olympic Committee announced it would be dropping one sport from their program to make room for a new sport to be added. Among the six on the chopping block were modern pentathlon and Wrestling. When polling sports pundits and analysts many thought that modern pentathlon would not survive the vote and it even prompted the pentathlon community to comment on the possible demise of the their sport by the IOC. In a shocking turn, Wrestling, which dates back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, was voted out of the games.
“This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said to the Associated Press. “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.”
The removal of wrestling allows for one more sport to be added to the Olympic program, but insiders are saying that although they will take part in the vote with the other 7 sports to be included, no one is expecting them to include wrestling so soon after being voted out. The vote has already sparked numerous petitions, social media web sites and boosters to rally together, but there doesn’t seem much hope to get the sport added back to the 2020 games.
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. The move made room for Rugby and Golf to be added.
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