Olympic Wrestling is Saved!

Image from Wikipedia

      Wrestling is saved!  The IOC voted today to roll the mats out for 2020.  I've said since the idea of cutting wrestling came up that it was a bad idea to give wrestlers a cause to rally behind.  By bad I mean good of course!  Having spent the better part of my life in wrestling it was a shock to even see such a staple sport cut from the Olympics, especially since it was the first combat sports in the Olympics dating all the way back to nearly 600bce.  Needless to say I'm happy to see it back on the list, not that I'll ever make it in myself, but I do know how hard I worked to just get to a state level.  It would be absolutely sickenning to think of people who put so much more into the sport to be stripped of what is probably their lifelong dream.  Today those ridiculously talented men and women can rejoice, which for a wrestler just means extra training.  Yay sprints!

     If this close call shows us anything it's that our sport may be on borrowed time.  In the US high school wrestling has seen a 52% drop in participation over the last 10 years.  These two events show that MMA hasn't done what many of us thought it would in spreading the gospel.  Despite the success of many wrestlers in MMA, such as Chris Weidman and Ben Askren, many wrestling programs are still seeing a decline.  The future of our sport doesn't have to be grim though.  There are so many people who stepped up to save Olympic wrestling, and we have to continue the fight to keep wrestling alive.  The idea of losing Olympic wrestling showed us that we can unite worldwide as a sport.  It's the first thing, maybe ever, that the US, Russia, and Iran have ever agreed on.  It was such a pressing issue in Russia that President Vladimir Putin himself made great strides in organizing support for wrestling.

     In the end it's the responsibility of all wrestlers and former wrestlers to grow the sport.  Get involved in some way, even if its as small as showing your little brother a double leg, or explaining to people what the sport is really about.  It took me a fairly long time to learn this simple fact, nobody is ever done with wrestling.  The spirit of a wrestler is still within us all, and it's our duty to share it with others, so that 2600 years from now wrestling will still be here.

-Snowman