WRESTLING DROPPED FROM 2020 OLYMPICS
International Olympic Committee (IOC) leaders have dropped wrestling from the 2020 Games in a surprise decision, leading to scrapping one of the oldest sports on the Olympic program.
The IOC executive board decided on Tuesday to retain modern pentathlon – the event considered most at risk and remove wrestling instead from its list of core sports.
The IOC board acted after reviewing the 26 sports on the current Olympic program.
Eliminating one sport allows the IOC 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.
The sport featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year’s London Olympics.
Wrestling will now be listed with seven other sports in applying for inclusion in 2020.
The final vote will be made at the IOC general assembly in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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 at St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to propose for the 2020 inclusionThey will be vying for a single opening in 2020.
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.
The two were 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.
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