Bah Gawd, King, That Sport Has A Family

For some reason I cannot possibly fathom, and for that matter nobody else can either, the IOC today decided to drop wrestling from the Olympic program starting in 2020.

When baseball and softball were dropped, the voting on dropping them took the form of individual up-or-down votes on each sport, dropping anyone that came in under 50% approval, and those were the only sports that came in under 50%. In this case, it appears to be a case of them deciding to drop something from the outset and everything that followed taking the form of figuring out what. Field hockey, modern pentathlon and taekwondo were the other sports at risk in the final round of voting, with modern pentathlon being on the bubble for years.

If you asked me, considering how utterly corrupt and damaging to the movement the boxing competition was in London, that was what needed to go if we're voting something out of the Games. People would have understood if boxing were kicked out.

There is a chance for the IOC to fix their mistake, and really, we can all agree that it was a huge mistake. In May, they'll be picking from wrestling as well as karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding, wushu and a combined baseball/softball bid to consider for the opening created by dropping wrestling, and voting to include or not include whatever sport they pick in September. Wrestling, to my eyes, is infinitely more worthy of Olympic status than anything else on that list, and it should be noted that sport climbing and wakeboarding were previously dropped from the X-Games.

Hopefully enough of an outcry will convince them to put it back.