Olympics move to drop wrestling: What is the IOC thinking?

The International Olympic Committee executive board recommended dropping wrestling from the Summer Olympics, beginning in 2020. The decision does not cast the IOC in a good light.

|
Paul Sancya/AP/File
This file photo shows the 60-kg Greco-Roman wrestling competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. IOC leaders have dropped wrestling for the 2020 Games in a surprise decision to scrap one of the oldest sports on the Olympic program.

The International Olympic Committee's executive board on Tuesday showed the world that the organization is still struggling to outgrow its reputation as a cabal of out-of-touch elitists.

By recommending the elimination of wrestling from the Summer Olympics program beginning in 2020, the IOC executive board made a decision that was so wildly wrong-headed that it exposes the movement to ridicule and allegations of foul play.

Wrestling is a staple of the modern Games, not only because it was included in the 1896 Athens Olympics, but also because it so vividly evokes the imagery of the ancient Games upon which the modern version is built. With the exception of the marathon, it is possible that no single sport is more intimately intertwined with the origins of the Olympics than wrestling.

The motive behind the IOC's decision was not bad. The organization wisely wants to rein in the size of the Summer Games, which have become bloated beyond all reckoning. Even the London Games, which made an unprecedented effort to spend wisely, cost $14 billion.

But to think cutting wrestling is the answer to that problem strains credulity. Among the sports still on the Summer Olympics program: canoeing, handball, judo, modern pentathlon, shooting, and taekwondo. Do any of those sports, despite their individual merits, deserve to be in the Olympics more than wrestling?

Attention has focused most on taekwondo and modern pentathlon, a sport so obscure that many (perhaps most) viewers don't know it exists, much less what it is. By keeping these sports at the expense of wrestling, the IOC has shown that efforts at self-reform perhaps need more work.

After the Salt Lake City Games, when IOC members were shown to have accepted bribes in order to support the city's Olympics bid, the IOC sought to demonstrate that it could root out corruption. But why would it keep taekwondo, a sport widely seen as being insignificant outside South Korea, if not to appease Samsung, the South Korean technology company that is a major Games supporter? The illogic of the decision has already prompted questions.

Also in recent years, the IOC has sought to soften its image as a collection of barons and "your highnesses" and "most esteemed gentlemen" milking the world's sporting appetite for all the money, power, and publicity it can hoard. Yet it refused to eliminate the modern pentathlon, a sport invented by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, that is the very definition of elitism – combining equestrian, fencing, shooting, running, and swimming.

Of course, there is a natural romantic attachment to a sport created by the founder of the Olympics. It is an heirloom of his vision, and the IOC would naturally be loath to cast it off. Without the Olympics, it would die.

But whose interests do the Olympics serve? Are they the plaything of barons or do they fulfill a broader purpose within sport?

How does the IOC want us to answer that question? How did it act Tuesday?

Of course, wrestling could be reinstated later this year at the IOC general assembly. Wrestling now becomes of one of seven sports competing for one open slot in the 2020 Games. But reinstating a sport that the executive committee just canned is seen as very unlikely. The other sports include baseball/softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding, and wushu (apparently, a form of martial arts).

Roller sports? Sport climbing? Wakeboarding? You can see what's going on here. The Summer Olympics have already added golf and rugby. The common denominator is that the Olympics are looking to become more mainstream – more cool (and profitable), basically. And that makes sense. To stay relevant, the Olympics have to be relevant. There are only so many obscure sports our Olympic appetite can handle.

But taekwondo over wrestling? Canoeing over wrestling? Modern pentathlon over wrestling?

We didn't think so.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Olympics move to drop wrestling: What is the IOC thinking?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Sports/2013/0212/Olympics-move-to-drop-wrestling-What-is-the-IOC-thinking
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe