Fighting for the Right to Compete

By: Stephen Conway

Helen Maroulis Flying the Colors
(Photo cred: Ryan Remiorz)

J'den Cox Representing the U.S. Well
(Photo cred: Jamie Squire)

In February 2013 the International Olympic Committee voted to remove the sport of wrestling from the summer olympics, thus allowing only 25 “core sports” to compete in the games. This caused a great uproar in the wrestling community and many people were set on debating this crucial decision to keep the great sport of wrestling in the highest level of completion that there is. With the pressure to reduce the number of events in the summer olympics after the games in the 2012 games in London, the International Olympic Committee began studies on the 26 “core sports” that had the most impact on the game and what sports had the most worldwide grassroots support. The goal for the International Olympic Committee was to change the number of “core sports” from 26 to 25 starting in the 2020 olympics. On February 12, 2013 the Committee voted to recommend the removal of wrestling from from the 2020 olympics and from future olympics. You might ask, how could the Olympic committee even think to remove one of the founding sports that started the olympics? After the announcement from the committee there was a major disagreement stemming from the wrestling community. This spurred a worldwide petition that spanned from wrestlers of all ages to fans of the sport. These signatures made a major impact on the deciding factor to keep the sport in the sport in the olympics.

Battle Gear

On September 8th, 2013 the International Olympic Committee announced that wrestling won the bid to stay in the olympics in which wrestling was competing with baseball/softball, karate, wake boarding, squash, sport climbing, roller sports, and wushu to stay in the future games. This goes to show that this ancient sport which is said that originally spawned the olympics means a lot to the people who are involved with and these people themselves saved the future of this sport in the olympics for the time being. In the other related news wrestling in the 2016 Rio olympics went on as planned as 3 Americans medaled in freestyle wrestling. Missouri native J’den Cox placed 3rd in mens freestyle in the 86 kg weight class and Kyle Snyder who took the gold in the mens freestyle 97 kg weight class. On the flip side women’s freestyle wrestling American Helen Maroulis took the gold in the 53 kg weight class upsetting the defending 3 time olympic champion Soari Yoshida of Japan by the score of 4 to 1.