Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Good bye to ‘Wrestling’?' that was published in Newsband

Good bye to ‘Wrestling’?

It is recommended that wrestling be pushed off the Olympic mat in 2020. It is an unexpected, cruel blow to a sport that was part of the ancient Olympics. If this sport goes out of the 2020 programme, it will be the biggest sport yet to be axed from the Games.

The International Olympic Committee goes through an elaborate assessment before deleting or including a sport in the Olympic programme. Several critics, besides the International Wrestling Federation, have pointed out that a “clash of interests” among the IOC board members voting to pick the 25 ‘core sports’ for the 2020 Games could have contributed to the outcome.

Wrestling is a sport that is easy to follow, and, alongside running, is an elemental discipline that embodies the spirit of the Olympics. The fact that wrestling had medal winners from 29 countries, more than the number of participating nations (26) in modern pentathlon at the last Olympics, should clinch the argument about ‘universality,’ something the IOC seriously advocates.

The IOC Board does not have a member from any of the dominant ‘wrestling powers’ including the U.S. and Russia. India, which won two of its six medals in the London Olympics in wrestling — and has four in all from the sport — is justifiably upset at a time when its National Olympic Committee stands suspended. Our Sports Ministry should contribute to the rescue of the sport.

Wrestling lies at the very root of Olympic sports. From the time of the ancient Greeks, wrestling has always been a part of the Olympics.

According to one of the fan of wrestling, if IOC has to reduce the number of games, then it should exclude swimming and diving since every year only one person wins six, seven or even eight gold medals in one meet – then repeats this over three Olympic Meets.

It will be sad if wrestling is dropped from the Olympics. It is the only game where India has best chance to win a medal and if wrestling is dropped then it would become difficult for us to increase our medal tally.  

This also shows the poor state of sports in India. We cannot win medal in most of the games that are part of Olympics. What we need is to develop our talents in other sports too and provide infrastructure and other financial aid to the emerging athletes. We cannot depend on one or two events to increase our medal tally; instead we should aim high and compete with USA, China and Russia for the top position.