There’s a little secret about the Olympics. In order to add a new event designed to capture the modern zeitgeist, an older event has to be cut. With an urge to modernize the 26 events on the modern Olympic Games, the IOC has decided to remove one of the traditional events from the 2020 Games. The event being cut from the Olympics is wrestling. No, not professional wrestling, amateur grappling is getting removed from the Olympics to be replaced by one of the following events: baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, wakeboarding and wushu.
Amazingly, wrestling has been a part of the Olympics since the very first Olympics at Athens in 1896. Since then, Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling has been a part of the Olympics ever since (and has spread to the high school level and below). Not anymore, I guess. Modern Pentathlon, one of the more at-risk events, was retained in the Olympics, yet one of the few events from the ancient Olympiad (even before 1896) gets removed. Makes perfect sense to me.
Tags: IOC. 2020 Olympics, IOC drops wrestling from the olympics, IOC drops wrestling from 2020 olympics, sports, amateur sports, amateur wrestling, greco-roman wrestling, international olympic committee, wrestling dropped from the olympics, wrestling removed from the olympics, 1896 athens olympics, event from the first olympics removed