Fight to regain Olympic foothold continues for wrestling



The world wrestling community cleared one hurdle on Wednesday when wrestling was named as one of three finalists for inclusion into the 2020 Olympic Games less than four months after being removed from the list of core sports that will remain after the 2016 Olympics.

Wrestling, an original sport at the very first Ancient Olympics, as well as one included at the start of the Modern Olympics in 1896, still has a fight ahead of it before the final vote that will take place from the full membership of the International Olympic Committee during the Sept. 7-10 session in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When the executive board of the IOC removed wrestling as a core sport in February, it sent shockwaves through not just the wrestling community, but the sporting world.

Olympians from other sports like gold medal cyclist Marty Nothstein, swimming's Mark Spitz and Janet Evans, speed skating's Apolo Anton Ono, soccer's Landon Donovan, and gymnasts Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner have spoken out to keep wrestling in the Olympics.

"I think it's pretty cool when you have other sports, and big names in other sports, saying that this is wrong, that wrestling needs to be in there," said former Lehigh University wrestling coach Greg Strobel, a current assistant athletics director at the school as well as a former U.S. Olympic coach.

Former NFL player Mike Golic and actors like Billy Baldwin, Ashton Kutcher, Matthew Modine, Channing Tatum and Tom Arnold also have spoken up in support of Olympic wrestling.

Even more impressive, U.S., Russia and Iran stand side-by-side, hand-in-hand to keep wrestling in the Olympic family with 177 nations joined together to promote the sport.

The fight now isn't about getting included for the September vote, but about reaffirming to the general membership of the IOC that wrestling belongs on the Olympic stage.

"By making the decision to remove wrestling from the core sports for 2020, the IOC executive board forced wrestling to make some radical changes to make it better," Strobel said.

The first thing FILA, the world governing body of wrestling, did was remove former president Raphael Martinetti who was viewed as dictatorial and out of touch with the Olympic family.

New president Nenad Lalovic of Serbia is being assisted in a vice presidency role by former Allentown High star and world champion Stan Dziedzic, both ever-present at high-level meetings with IOC officials.

Strobel said that once Martinetti was removed from power, rule changes were instituted almost immediately to do away with the puzzling overtime clinch rule, plus rules have been added to make scoring more recognizable, as well as penalize stalling. Instead of three one-period matches, the score is cumulative, as in the folkstyle periods that are familiar to all U.S. wrestlers. Strobel said the rules are still evolving to encourage more scoring and less stalling to make it more appealing and understandable to non-wrestlers.

Wrestling survived its semifinal matchup in front of the IOC executive board, getting past other sports like karate, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu. The finals take place in September against squash and a combined baseball/softball bid.

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has already stated that his league will not shut down at any time in the summer to make its players available for the Olympics.

Squash? I'm growing it in my garden right now. If squash makes it, you know why an antiquated cavalry sport like Modern Pentathlon is among the 25 core sports, which also includes tennis (isn't the Grand Slam enough for the pros?) and badminton (in which competitors deliberately tanked matches to get easier draws during the London Olympics).

The IOC lists judo and taekwondo as separate sports. The IOC should instead list martial arts and include judo, taekwondo and karate, and then do as it does with cycling and gymnastics: you can add more disciplines, but you gain no additional slots for athletes. That's one of the reasons wrestling is down to so few weight classes.

In fact, the IOC could go one better and define "hand-to-hand combat" as a sport which includes the disciplines of wrestling, boxing and the martial arts. Additions within the discipline will receive no extra athlete slots.

But first, wrestling needs to regain its foothold within the Olympic family.

"There is a lot of work ahead, but we're up to the challenge," USA Wrestling executive director Rich Bender said following Tuesday's vote by the executive board. "The entire wrestling world needs to continue to push forward. We need to continue diligently and make upgrades and changes to the sport to ensure that we are successful in Buenos Aires."

Wrestling has rallied through a variety of websites as well as extensive use of social media to promote the sport's efforts to remain in the Olympic program. You can check out some of the information yourself at

Wrestling is in the finals for Olympic contention. It's the third period of the match. The wrestling community has trained hard for this fight. It's a fight for its Olympic life, and if you're fan of UFC and other mixed martial arts, you know better than to bet against a wrestler.


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