http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2013/02/12/ioc-drops-wrestling-2020-olympics/1912179/ So crazy. Seems like there are so many other better choices.
Just seems so odd, greco-roman wrestling seems like an integral part of the olympics, it's one of the sports I picture when I think olympics, along with marathons and javelin toss / discus throw / shot putt.
Wrestling is traditionally a strong sport for Sweden so it gets a good amount of coverage in the olympics but man, the rules are just arcane and unexciting.
That's a problem with most olympic sports, over time more funky rules get added, to the point where only people who follow the sport can figure anything out.
The only olympic wrestling moment I remember was Rulon Gardner defeating Human Killdozer Alexander Karelin by lucking into a point and then laying on top of him for three minutes. Crushingly dull. Literally.
That's crazy. Doesn't pretty much every country have wrestling? Women's wrestling got a ton of coverage in Japan last year, when a few of their women did really well. I enjoyed it.
God, trampoline is the worst. And synchronized swimming. I'm wondering if the issue here is that they just added women's wrestling last Olympics and now want to get it out because men but know how bad it would look to just take women out.
Because it made them, as men, uncomfortable to watch women grappling (or it turned them on, same thing). It's just a theory. Otherwise, I got nothing. Wrestling has been in since 1896 and wasn't even considered to be under threat.
Judo's the same idea except the clothing is looser and there's a bit more throwing and a bit less grappling.
On NPR last night it was pointed out that the countries on the olympic committee designated with deciding this stuff generally do poorly at medaling, while the VP or something of the committee is the son of a pentathlete. The committee claims that they have like thirty some-odd criteria to judge a sport, but they won't publicly release what those are or how wrestling fared in them.
So wrestling joins poetry, painting, sculpture, music, poodle clipping and town planning, amongst others. I guess they need to help promote those lesser amateur sports such as golf, tennis, football and basketball that don't have their own big events.
Don't worry dudes. Wrestling may be out of the Olympics, but it will always have a home in the Champions League.
