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The 7 - Sports that aren't Baseball, Football, Basketball, or Hockey - IOC Drops Wrestling After 2016 Olympics
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Mike Zeidler
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#1 Posted on 12.2.13 0520.28
Reposted on: 12.2.20 0522.16
Man, all sorts of craziness this week, first The Pope, now wrestling is kaput.

    Originally posted by The AP
    IOC leaders dropped wrestling from the program for the 2020 Olympics on Tuesday, an official familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.

    In a surprise move, the IOC executive board decided to retain modern pentathlon , the sport considered most at risk , and remove wrestling instead, the official said.

    The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision hadn't been announced yet.

    The IOC board acted after reviewing the 26 sports on the current Olympic program. Eliminating one sport allows the International Olympic Committee to add a new sport to the program later this year.

    Wrestling combines freestyle and Greco-Roman disciplines. It had 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year's London Olympics.

    Wrestling will now join seven other sports in applying for inclusion in 2020. 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.


(edited by Mike Zeidler on 12.2.13 0521)
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samoflange
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#2 Posted on 12.2.13 0703.55
Reposted on: 12.2.20 0705.25
That's crazy. Whenever I think 'Olympics', 'wrestling' is the first thing that comes to mind. I love watching Olympic wrestling, and it's been especially cool lately because a lot of MMA guys have been coming out of that pool.

idea: get rid of a few of the 12 zillion swim races and make room for some more interesting sports
DrDirt
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#3 Posted on 12.2.13 1249.14
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1252.52
It's all about TV viewership. Maybe they could wrestle in beach volleyball outfits.
KJames199
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#4 Posted on 12.2.13 1323.02
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1325.09
    Originally posted by DrDirt
    It's all about TV viewership.
Well, not quite all:
    Originally posted by wrestlingobserver.com
    It came down to wrestling and Modern Pentathlon, which was largely expected to be dropped.

    It is believed that sport was saved because Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC President, and a member of the IOC board is the Vice President of the world governing body of the Pentathlon.
thecubsfan
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#5 Posted on 12.2.13 1338.26
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1342.27
If it was about TV viewership, Modern Pentathlon would have been dropped (and Table Tennis wouldn't have made the final five.)
Matt Tracker
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#6 Posted on 12.2.13 1353.20
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1355.21
MMA in 2024?
dMr
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#7 Posted on 12.2.13 1409.32
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1409.32
    Originally posted by samoflange
    idea: get rid of a few of the 12 zillion swim races and make room for some more interesting sports
True, or just don't add golf. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of whatever sports comprise it. Golf already has four majors. That's what budding young golfers aspire to win. The sport doesn't need the Olympics and the Olympics have no need for golf. For similar reasons ditching tennis is something I'd have no problem with.

Then we can get onto whittling down sports with a kajillion sub-disciplines (rowing, swimming, cycling) and things that aren't sports (horse dancing).

    Originally posted by thecubsfan
    If it was about TV viewership, Modern Pentathlon would have been dropped (and Table Tennis wouldn't have made the final five.)


I dunno man. Wrestling's a pretty damn boring/inaccessible sport. I can't imagine it was rocking the ratings in too many places. Not that I'm suggesting Modern Pentathlon was, but I suspect one gets "shite" ratings and the other gets "even shiter" ratings.

thecubsfan
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#8 Posted on 12.2.13 1451.15
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1453.43
I'm not saying wrestling is good viewing*, but Modern Penthalon is an anti-TV sport. Different venues, events held hours apart, consisting of sports which to today's eyes look completely random and not very popular - pistol shooting, show (horse) jumping, fencing, a cross country run, and 200M dash - where the participants aren't really competing against each other much, but scoring hard to follow points. Looking at the wikipedia page, they've tinkered with the rules a lot of times to make it more workable.

But I think TV viewers aren't really driven first by the quality of the sports, but the countries which are involved. There's 2 events in Modern Pentathlon, usually won by Russia or small-ish European countries. Wrestling keeps Russia, brings in the Middle East, Asia and the US, because there's a lot more medals going around.

* hahaha [cries]
hansen9j
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#9 Posted on 12.2.13 1455.35
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1456.21
    Originally posted by Matt Tracker
    MMA in 2024?
No, but this likely is good for MMA, as more wrestlers will graduate from college and go straight to MMA, rather than hold out hope for an Olympic career. (Imagine if Daniel Cormier had five more years of experience.)
Mr. Boffo
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#10 Posted on 12.2.13 1524.30
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1524.33
These changes happen because the IOC has decided that there be no more than 28 sports at the Olympics. Cutting down on swimming doesn't help, because swimming is all one sport. The list of 28 for 2016 is:
Swimming, Canoe/Kayak, Cycling, Gymnastics, Volleyball, Equestrian, Archery, Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Fencing, Field Hockey, Soccer, Handball, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Weightlifting, Wrestling, Golf, Rugby Sevens.

This only eliminates Wrestling from the list of core sports for 2020, so that they can choose a sport to add from the list at the bottom of Mike Zeidler's quoted article.

Besides Modern Pentathlon, other sports that were in the final vote were Taekwondo and Field Hockey. I would have eliminated Modern Pentathlon first and Equestrian second, but considering it wasn't even in the final cut, I must be in the minority on that one. As for table tennis, don't forget how popular it seems to be in Asian countries. China's probably got a lot of viewers.

I still think it will be down to Wrestling and Baseball/Softball for that last spot for 2020. I realize they've added extreme-type sports to the winter games, but roller sports, sport climbing, and wakeboarding don't seem like summer Olympic events to me. Maybe someone knows more about this than I do, but I don't even know how you pick a winner in sport climbing. I think they should combine the various martial arts disciplines (Judo, Taekwondo, Karate, Wushu), but they seem to want each sport to have its own federation.
samoflange
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#11 Posted on 12.2.13 1639.54
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1641.27

    These changes happen because the IOC has decided that there be no more than 28 sports at the Olympics. Cutting down on swimming doesn't help, because swimming is all one sport.
It would help because then there'd be less of a reason to limit the list to 28.


    I don't even know how you pick a winner in sport climbing.
All of the sport climbing stuff I've watched at the climbing gym I go to occasionally has been scored on either speed or distance. Either the guy who finishes a moderate route first wins or the guy who gets the farthest on a difficult, technical route wins. Sometimes the climbers can watch other competitors' attempts and sometimes they don't even get to see the route ahead of time. I doubt it would be a very popular Olympic sport, but it's surely better than horse jumping.


    I think they should combine the various martial arts disciplines (Judo, Taekwondo, Karate, Wushu), but they seem to want each sport to have its own federation.
This is an interesting idea, maybe call it Kickboxing. Having a combined group for all grappling sports would be cool too. Competitors could utilize any non-striking martial art -- sort of like an MMA Lite. Boxing, Kickboxing, and Grappling as the three Olympic combat sports would be rather groovy. (I don't particularly like boxing but it is far more popular than any other single combat sport.)

(edited by samoflange on 12.2.13 1740)
The Thrill
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#12 Posted on 12.2.13 1646.35
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1650.03
The reason this is a damned crime is because wrestling is one of the last remaining sports at the Games that:

A) were in the original "modern" Games in 1896, and

B) were, y'know, one of the last remaining sports that ancient Greeks actually participated in.

But hey, let's poop all over centuries' worth of athletic tradition, right? Screw you, IOC.
OndaGrande
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#13 Posted on 12.2.13 1958.54
Reposted on: 12.2.20 1959.00
It's patently ridiculous to drop an event that epitomizes every tradition in sport. Literally thousands of years as an organized competition and most likely the first actual sport dating back to prehistoric times, hand to hand ground combat is culturally universal in scope. All other martial arts disciplines rose from wrestling evolving into modern forms of entertainment. SMDH
The Goon
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#14 Posted on 12.2.13 2200.16
Reposted on: 12.2.20 2201.16
    Originally posted by KJames199
      Originally posted by DrDirt
      It's all about TV viewership.
    Well, not quite all:
      Originally posted by wrestlingobserver.com
      It came down to wrestling and Modern Pentathlon, which was largely expected to be dropped.

      It is believed that sport was saved because Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC President, and a member of the IOC board is the Vice President of the world governing body of the Pentathlon.



Guess which fuckface is having fun in hell?
KJames199
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#15 Posted on 12.2.13 2329.25
Reposted on: 12.2.20 2329.26
    Originally posted by The Goon
    Guess which fuckface is having fun in hell?
If Olympic wrestling had to die so that my memories of my all-time favourite thread title could be reborn, well... I'd say we're all better off. The new-style URL just makes it all the sweeter.
StingArmy
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#16 Posted on 13.2.13 0201.24
Reposted on: 13.2.20 0201.42
    Originally posted by dMr
    True, or just don't add golf. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of whatever sports comprise it. Golf already has four majors. That's what budding young golfers aspire to win. The sport doesn't need the Olympics and the Olympics have no need for golf. For similar reasons ditching tennis is something I'd have no problem with.


If you follow through on that, though, you'd have to get rid of basketball. No thanks! You'd probably have to get rid of boxing too, and maybe other things I'm not thinking of right now, but you had me at basketball.

It's too bad dressage and sprint cycling don't count as separate sports. They are the biggest jokes in the Olympics and should be eradicated from my life permanently.

- StingArmy
dMr
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#17 Posted on 13.2.13 0222.05
Reposted on: 13.2.20 0222.42
    Originally posted by StingArmy
    you'd have to get rid of basketball.


Completely OK with that. It's a sport which a vanishingly small number of countries take seriously which makes an international competition largely redundant. Plus, it's wealthy enough to sort its own World Cup out if they're that bothered. And I personally think it's pants which should be a compelling reason for its exclusion.


    You'd probably have to get rid of boxing too,


I'd argue the Olympics is still the peak of the amateur code. I don't think that's just semantics because amateur boxing is a very different animal to the professional code, but I'll grant you it's the sport where my "Olympics should be the pinnacle" argument is weakest.


    It's too bad dressage and sprint cycling don't count as separate sports


Dressage is the drizzling shits to be sure, but sprint cycling is awesome! A couple of the events in it seem contrived and could be done away with, but the sport itself is people whizzing round a velodrome at insane speeds with little to speak of in terms of either protection or brakes. What's not to love?


(edited by dMr on 13.2.13 0823)
Mike Zeidler
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#18 Posted on 13.2.13 0432.39
Reposted on: 13.2.20 0432.58
I honestly think Badminton deserves a timeout for all the crap that was pulled in London.
Mr. Boffo
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#19 Posted on 13.2.13 0807.13
Reposted on: 13.2.20 0815.15
    Originally posted by dMr
    A couple of the events in it seem contrived and could be done away with, but the sport itself is people whizzing round a velodrome at insane speeds with little to speak of in terms of either protection or brakes. What's not to love?

The Match Sprint where the two people try very hard to pedal very slowly until suddenly they spring into action is pretty strange, you have to admit.
dMr
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#20 Posted on 13.2.13 1125.12
Reposted on: 13.2.20 1125.13
    Originally posted by Mr. Boffo
      Originally posted by dMr
      A couple of the events in it seem contrived and could be done away with, but the sport itself is people whizzing round a velodrome at insane speeds with little to speak of in terms of either protection or brakes. What's not to love?

    The Match Sprint where the two people try very hard to pedal very slowly until suddenly they spring into action is pretty strange, you have to admit.
I *love* that. It's a great mix of tactics and pace/power. And to be clear, they can go at whatever pace they want throughout so you not infrequently get the person in front trying to go off early and catch the other person napping.

The keirin, where they follow an emotionless middle-aged gent on a moped for the first few laps because of reasons to be determined is demonstrably the weirdest, although the addition of the omnium last year certainly gave it a run for its money.

I think if you're going to accept racing on feet, racing on feet over barriers, racing on feet through puddles, racing on feet where you're not allowed to run, racing in water, racing in water in rowing boats, racing in water in sailing boats (?!), racing in choppy water in paddley boats, racing on bikes on roads, racing on bikes off roads and racing on BMXs then the only case that can be made against indoor cycling (assuming enough countries participate) is "I personally don't like it" so as long as there's enough people who personally *do* then them's the breaks.

I really don't want this to sound like I'm applauding the loss of wrestling by the way. I mean seriously, modern pentathlon? And seriously, seriously; given the IOC's track record on decision making shouldn't they make the votes (and accompanying rationale) public? If you want to have the power to make such decisions you should be willing to have those decisions scrutinised. And by 'scrutinised' I of course mean 'ridiculed'.
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