http://news.yahoo.com/ioc-drops-wrestling-2020-olympics-111816483--oly.html

But thank god they kept golf and the modern pentathlon

2/12/2013 8:58:55 AM

Today we are all Kurt Angle

2/12/2013 8:59:38 AM

suck on that, Soviet Union!

2/12/2013 9:15:49 AM

I am fine with Rugby, but golf doesn't belong @ the olympics.

I can't believe wrestling lost out to Taekwando and field hocky. Crazy!

2/12/2013 9:20:18 AM

it seems like it never gets TV coverage anyways

I'm never a fan of the Olympics dropping a sport

2/12/2013 9:20:22 AM

more importantly, ballroom dance is safe!

2/12/2013 9:24:46 AM

Rulon Gardner is sad

2/12/2013 9:28:11 AM

Wow that is very surprising I mean hasnt that one been around pretty much since they started?

2/12/2013 9:30:39 AM

Maybe they'll add MMA? That'd be pretty awesome

What fighting do they have? I can think of boxing and maybe kickboxing, but I'm not very aware of what's there already.

2/12/2013 9:31:33 AM

Yes, since the Olympics in Athens in 1896.

2/12/2013 9:32:59 AM

Quote :

"Wrestling will now join seven other sports in applying for inclusion in 2020. The others are a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu. They will be vying for a single opening in 2020."

well, to me it looks like wrestling will still be in the olympics.

BECAUSE FUCK WUSHU

2/12/2013 9:34:50 AM

IOC sucks donkeyballs

2/12/2013 9:40:46 AM

How fun would a Royal Rumble be with a member from each country!?

2/12/2013 9:45:14 AM

^It would be the most watched event...at least it would in my household

Speaking of, I've been trying to find the ratings for the Olympics broken down by sport and coming up short...anyone know of a site?

2/12/2013 9:47:21 AM

STAYIN GANGSTA

2/12/2013 9:51:52 AM

Thats what is kinda annoying about this. When shitty NBC buries wrestling at 2am on thursday morning, how do you expect it to compete with swimming and sprinting/track&field which are shown from 6-8pm every night during the week?

Olympic TV coverage is the worst EVAR!!!

2/12/2013 9:53:24 AM

Quote :

"Maybe they'll add MMA? That'd be pretty awesome What fighting do they have? I can think of boxing and maybe kickboxing, but I'm not very aware of what's there already."

Boxing, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, and Wrestling were the only permanent sports.

Quote :

"The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission report that analyzed 39 criteria, including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity."

Maybe they didn't have a good anti-doping policy?

2/12/2013 9:59:19 AM

Wasn't it full of corruption or was that just boxing?

2/12/2013 10:04:50 AM

lame

2/12/2013 10:11:40 AM

Fucking ridiculous. Wrestling is one of the most pure and challenging sports out there. It's a damn shame these people got rid of it and include stupid shit like trampoline

2/12/2013 10:18:44 AM

Quote :

" but golf doesn't belong @ the olympics. "

Why exactly?

2/12/2013 10:20:32 AM

Speaking only personally, and not from the perspective of what actually "belongs" there (i.e. your question), I will just say I'd rather they include sports in the olympics of which I cannot frequently turn the TV on and find people from all around the world competing against each other.

2/12/2013 10:26:24 AM

well that's a stupid perspective

2/12/2013 10:41:03 AM

Quote :

"Why exactly?"

My thinking exactly. Golf seems like the exact kind of sport that should be in the Olympics.

2/12/2013 10:44:22 AM

^^^^I make that statement as probably one of the biggest golf fans on tww.

Mike and Mike summed it up perfectly this morning. The gold medal should be the top prize in your sport, and there is just no way any golfer would trade a green jacket or a US Open for the golfing gold medal.

I think the Olympics is dealing with the same struggle as college football, and they are selling their soul for Dollars and Ratings. Wrestling is arguably the truest of Olympic competitions and its been removed because of poor ratings. Sad for the olympics as a whole. Table tennis still has a place though, so that seems fair!

[Edited on February 12, 2013 at 10:49 AM. Reason : ^]

2/12/2013 10:49:11 AM

hell they should just remove all martial arts from the olympics id honestly be fine with it.

with the way the rules are set for most of them and how they are "scored" what you watch in an olympic broadcast winds up being a sport without teeth anyway.

2/12/2013 12:22:54 PM

Quote :

"with the way the rules are set for most of them and how they are "scored" what you watch in an olympic broadcast winds up being a sport without teeth anyway."

But the martial arts are usually scored that way and have been for a long time? It's not MMA. If you want that, there's plenty of it elsewhere.

2/12/2013 2:24:43 PM

All I want is for squash to be approved.

2/12/2013 2:25:29 PM

They need to add jai alai again. then I'll care.

2/12/2013 2:33:52 PM

keep wrestling, get rid of boxing.

olympic boxing is a sham anyways.

2/12/2013 2:58:55 PM

How about instead of getting rid of sports they get rid of unnecessary medals. Do we really need to have 100 different swimming and track&field medals on every 5 minutes?

2/12/2013 3:16:02 PM

Quote :

"But the martial arts are usually scored that way and have been for a long time? It's not MMA. If you want that, there's plenty of it elsewhere. "

completely false. no one said anything about MMA i am not in favor of MMA in the olympics.


I am fine with all the track and field events

[Edited on February 12, 2013 at 3:53 PM. Reason : e]

2/12/2013 3:52:13 PM

at least half the olympic sports could be dropped and i wouldn't notice

2/12/2013 4:13:58 PM

the way the olympics need to be organized is as follows (minutia negotiable):

- every country sends X athletes. X can be as many as 50 or 60, as a starting point, to allow for adequate numbers of males and females.

- the olympics are primarily "iron man" style. of the 50 selected, they must collectively compete in all events. not every single person must compete in every single event, but there will be a minimum number of events that is required per person.

- this would require a more strategic approach to team selection. do you carry 12 NBA players and guarantee a gold in basketball, while all but assuring Kobe is in the high dive comp and Steve Nash is on the pommel horse? or do you take 5, and force Michael Phelps to play backup SF? decisions, decisions.

- the medal system can be modified or dropped altogether in favor of a points system. or, there could be some sort of round robin format that eliminates countries and whittles down the competition in a bracket style. of course that would lengthen the olympics, but why can't the event last the greater portion of a year? this is for all the global marbles, why does it just need to be a few weeks?

2/12/2013 4:25:41 PM

Yeah. It'd be really great to get a bunch of guys together who aren't really good at anything in particular and have them all compete. That's the ticket! Neither Kobe nor Phelps would be in that competition, because they are so specialized that they would probably get hurt in other fields. I don't want to see a great swimmer pulling his hammies doing the long jump. And god only knows that jumping off of a 30m platform would probably be the end of Kobe Bryant when he slams face first into the water.

Thankfully, we've already kind of got that competition: it's called the modern pentathlon!

2/12/2013 6:26:15 PM

^^ so your way of "improving" the Olympics is to completely disregard everything the Olympics stands for and create a completely different competition under the name "Olympics"

gotcha

2/12/2013 6:39:49 PM

i'd like to see Allison Stokke play beach volleyball and swim and stuff

2/12/2013 6:49:47 PM

wrestling was one of the few olympic events dating back to the original Greek games, and removing wrestling from the Olympics is an insult to the purpose of the competition. We've transformed the Olympics from an international event testing the raw limits of the human body into an event more focused on TV ratings.

2/12/2013 7:13:25 PM

^^^
^^^^
don't take life so seriously

the lulz would be endless

2/12/2013 8:35:59 PM

Quote :

"the way the olympics need to be organized is as follows (minutia negotiable): - every country sends X athletes. X can be as many as 50 or 60, as a starting point, to allow for adequate numbers of males and females. - the olympics are primarily "iron man" style. of the 50 selected, they must collectively compete in all events. not every single person must compete in every single event, but there will be a minimum number of events that is required per person. - this would require a more strategic approach to team selection. do you carry 12 NBA players and guarantee a gold in basketball, while all but assuring Kobe is in the high dive comp and Steve Nash is on the pommel horse? or do you take 5, and force Michael Phelps to play backup SF? decisions, decisions. - the medal system can be modified or dropped altogether in favor of a points system. or, there could be some sort of round robin format that eliminates countries and whittles down the competition in a bracket style. of course that would lengthen the olympics, but why can't the event last the greater portion of a year? this is for all the global marbles, why does it just need to be a few weeks? "

i've been thinking about this, and i'm really torn. i can't determine if it's merely a terrible idea, or the worst idea ever.

2/12/2013 8:48:33 PM

or the best idea evar

2/12/2013 8:50:29 PM

They've already done that. It was called Superstars and it sucked.

2/12/2013 8:50:37 PM

yall are hatin

who wouldnt want to see Lebron throw the javelin while McKayla Maroney ran the hurdles

2/12/2013 8:53:45 PM

oh well. at least i was able to divert the thread away from the topic of men grabassin'

2/12/2013 8:53:58 PM

WTF

2/12/2013 8:58:12 PM

Wait, just heard on ESPN that wrestling got beat by badminton? After all the shit that China or other asian country tried to pull by throwing matches?

2/12/2013 9:55:22 PM

to clarify, there were 26 sports in the Summer Olympics...Wrestling was voted out to make room for a new 26th sport in the 2020 games (ie Wrestling will be in the 2016 games)

Wrestling is on the list of 8 sports competing for the 26th sport in the 2020 games...so they might still get back in

2/12/2013 9:57:49 PM

The spot I heard was that they got into deliberations to kick one out and it came down to pentathlon, badminton, and wrestling...which I guess is what this paragraph was saying:

Quote :

"Wrestling was voted out from a final group that also included modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey, officials familiar with the vote told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the voting details were not made public."

2/12/2013 10:58:03 PM

Well thank God walking will still be in.

2/13/2013 11:26:41 AM

^Power Walking***

2/13/2013 11:29:01 AM