In early February of 2013, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) voted unanimously to end Olympic Wrestling effective for the 2020 Olympics. The decision left the world shocked, bewildered, and dismayed.
The main question posed is, “Why?” Why wrestling? In America, wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports. High school wrestling, in general, has expanded by 40,000 wrestlers in the last decade to total more than 270,000 American high school students who wrestle competitively. Internationally the number of wrestlers is in the millions.
More recently, a total of 29 countries received medals for wrestling in the 2012 Summer Olympics, only 26 countries competed in the modern pentathlon. The TV audience for wrestling events at the Olympics averaged 23 million viewers. The modern pentathlon, which was also on the cutting board of the IOC but was eventually kept, averaged only 12.5 million.
Wrestling is a pure form of sports. There are no weapons and competitors can’t run from their opponents, it’s just a pure, physical battle between two people. One person who has dedicated a big part of his life to wrestling is Alliance Bulldogs Wrestling Head Coach Travis Peak. He said, “It’s hard for me to really imagine the Olympics without wrestling. I have grown up watching wrestling and I’m always interested to see who the best wrestlers in the world are. It’s my sport. I have dedicated my life to the sport of wrestling and for it to not be in the Olympics is a slap in the face.”
When the Olympics began around 776 BC, the contact-sport wrestling played a huge part in the games until the abolishment of The Games in 393 AD. After the games returned in 1896, wrestling continued at the forefront, the prime of the competition, the “main event”.
Wrestling was the sport they had to let go? Coach Peak says wrestling has given him “Everything.” “It has given me strong will and discipline in all aspects of life. It has helped me to deal with humility through losing or coming up short on goals that I have invested myself into as much as one person can. It has taught me to overcome adversity and keep moving forward with things even when the chances of success were very low. It has taught me how to deal with winning and learning to be a humble person. I have learned that winning and losing are not always the important things but setting goals and working hard to achieve something greater than yourself is the real journey.”
So what can be done to save wrestling in the Olympics? Throughout the world, petitions are being signed, and reining Olympic gold medalist and a University of Nebraska alum Jordan Burroughs has created the #SaveOlympicWrestling hashtag on Twitter, but, in my opinion, that’s not going to do to much. It’s basically just a “We love wrestling” advertisement. Moreover, when do petitions ever overturn rulings? Possibly we could see a boycott of the Olympics? People not attending the Olympics, nor buying products advertising during the Olympics.
The fact there is only a slim chance that the IOC will overturn the ruling before the 2020 games and return wrestling to the Olympics. It’s unfair, it’s dejecting, and it’s tragic. Moreover, I guess that is what we get for leaving the fate of wrestling in the Olympics to an International committee, to people who have no care in the world for the sport, and people who are responsible for the death of a sport in the Olympics that has been with us for thousands of years.
