Celebrated in literature as far back as Homer’s Iliad and the Epic of Gilgamesh and depicted on Egyptian reliefs more than 4,500 years ago, wrestling is not only one of the most ancient of sports but among the most demanding. A wrestler requires strength, endurance, speed, flexibility, emotional restraint and cunning to pin down an opponent without the use of brute force or blows, which are forbidden. One of the first disciplines to be included in the original Olympic Games more than 2,700 years ago, wrestling has been part of the modern Olympics since they began in 1896. Last year, wrestlers from 71 countries competed in London.
Last week, however, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to eliminate wrestling from the Games, starting in 2020. The decision has provoked a storm of protest, uniting Russia, Iran and the US in an alliance to reverse it and prompting the resignation on Saturday of the president of wrestling’s world governing body FILA. The IOC offered no explanation for its decision but the evaluation criteria it uses for Olympic sports offer a clue. Apart from such unexceptional qualities as universality, which wrestling can certainly claim with its presence in 177 countries, the criteria include “youth appeal” and popularity measured by the extent of television coverage, the number of YouTube videos viewed and the number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers a sport can boast. Many of the countries where wrestling is most popular are poor, with little appeal to international broadcasters or global commercial sponsors.
Wrestling still has a chance as one of a shortlist of sports – also including karate, wushu, inline skating, wakeboarding, sport climbing, squash and baseball/softball – that will compete in September for a single place in the 2020 Olympics.
If the IOC wishes to ease fears that it is willing to sacrifice the Olympic spirit in pursuit of television ratings and commercial exploitation, it should restore wrestling to the Games.