Wrestling on Its Back

Tom Rosshirt
Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

When the International Olympic Committee announced its decision recently to eliminate wrestling beginning in the 2020 Summer Games, it triggered global reactions of disbelief and disgust and put the IOC on the defensive. IOC Vice President Thomas Bach clearly was trying to deny that the committee had miscalculated when he said: "These reactions, they are quite normal. This would have happened with any decision."

Doubtful. As the decision was announced, the world's top wrestling nations were on their way to Iran to compete in the 2013 World Cup. At the tournament, completed Friday in Tehran, wrestling officials from countries where the sport is a national passion conferred on how to score a reversal.

They have to move quickly. The IOC meets in May in Russia and then in full session in September in Argentina to add one more sport to the 2020 Summer Olympics. Wrestling is eligible to be voted back in, but it will be a politically difficult vote.
Updated: Tue Jan 27, 2015

When the International Olympic Committee announced its decision recently to eliminate wrestling beginning in the 2020 Summer Games, it triggered global reactions of disbelief and disgust and put the IOC on the defensive. IOC Vice President Thomas Bach clearly was trying to deny that the committee had miscalculated when he said: "These reactions, they are quite normal. This would have happened with any decision."

Doubtful. As the decision was announced, the world's top wrestling nations were on their way to Iran to compete in the 2013 World Cup. At the tournament, completed Friday in Tehran, wrestling officials from countries where the sport is a national passion conferred on how to score a reversal.

They have to move quickly. The IOC meets in May in Russia and then in full session in September in Argentina to add one more sport to the 2020 Summer Olympics. Wrestling is eligible to be voted back in, but it will be a politically difficult vote.

Here's how it could happen.

Supporters should bombard individual IOC executive committee members with visits, phone calls, emails, letters and public statements of outrage — making the case loudly and repeatedly that dumping the ancient and noble sport of wrestling betrays the Olympic purpose, tarnishes the Olympic brand and casts doubt on the integrity of the IOC.

An early and powerful example was the move of Valentin Jordanov, the Bulgarian wrestling federation president, who shipped his 1996 Olympic gold medal back to the IOC in protest.

Wrestling is the original sport, as old as human beings. It was in the ancient Olympic games and in the first modern games. It's a contest of strength, stamina, speed, skill, flexibility and agility that pits two athletes face to face with no teammates and no equipment. What sport is purer and more complete than that?

An Olympic gold medal in wrestling is the highest honor in the sport and a cause for national rejoicing. In honor of what tradition, for the sake of what cause, should it be dropped?

Today the United States and Iran and Russia and Turkey and Cuba and Belarus and others have come together to restore wrestling to the Olympics. Some of these countries are deeply divided; some have cut off diplomatic relations. How can the Olympics be true to its purpose if it obstructs the cause that brings them together?

If the protest is loud, sustained and magnified in the media, then NBC and others who have a financial stake in the integrity of the Olympic brand may privately express their concern.

But to effect a reversal, the pressure can't be scattered; it should be focused, and the focus should fall on Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the longtime IOC president.

Junior is a member of the IOC executive committee and was at the meeting last week that eliminated wrestling. At the close of the meeting, he pronounced himself "very, very happy."

Why was he happy? The committee met with the mission of eliminating one sport from the 2020 Olympics to make room for others. When the committee voted to eliminate wrestling, Samaranch had saved the sport that was expected to be eliminated — the modern pentathlon. Samaranch is vice president of the International Modern Pentathlon Union.

When he was asked whether he didn't face a conflict of interest, he said: "I am here in my capacity as executive board member."

But he also said of the modern pentathlon's survival as an Olympic sport, "We played our cards to the best of our ability and stressed the positives." Clearly, he was playing his cards for not the best interests of the Olympics but the best interests of his pet sport — a sport open to any child around the world who has a gun, a sword and a horse.

If wrestling supporters decry the conflict of interest, assail the secret vote and stress the absurdity of the Olympics' ousting one of its original sports, they could draw unwelcome scrutiny to the IOC. If the individual members of the executive committee feel the heat, they may get angry with Samaranch for embarrassing them and the committee. This could carve into Samaranch's influence on the IOC and jeopardize his ability to win the 2020 Summer Games for Madrid.

That would leave Samaranch with a clear way out — lead an effort to quell the unrest by restoring wrestling. Why not? He already saved his sport, and he likely has nothing against wrestling; it just got in the way. One could imagine his spin if the IOC votes later this year to restore wrestling: "I am overjoyed that wrestling will be part of the 2020 Olympics. The wrestling community clearly received the message that we sent it in February. It needs to make its sport more appealing for the modern era. That's going to happen now, and no one is happier about it than I am."