Pakistan

Olympics: Wrestling out of 2020 Games: IOC

Fifteen members of IOC executive board have decided to include seven other disciplines at the Game.

Afp February 13, 2013 Less than a minute read

LAUSANNE: Wrestling, an Olympic sport since the first Games in ancient Greece, looks set to be dropped, after the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday voted to remove it from the programme for 2020.

The decision, taken by the 15 members of the IOC executive board in Lausanne, Switzerland, leaves the sport grappling against seven other disciplines for inclusion at the Games, the location of which will be decided later this year.

“It’s a real shock. Wrestling was not on the radar,” an IOC source told AFP. “It was a very close vote between wrestling and modern pentathlon.”

Sports lobbying for inclusion in 2020 are squash, roller sports, softball/baseball, karate, wushu, the water sport wakeboard and sport climbing.

Squash and karate are generally seen to be leading the race to win the sole spot for the 2020 Games which will be held in either Tokyo, Madrid or Istanbul.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2013.