Secret Squirrel finds, as do you, that the IOC, the International
Olympic Committee,has REMOVED wrestling, as an Olympic sport.In what's
already been deemed a regrettable decision, and an unnecessary one at
that, the IOC has opted to remove wrestling from the 2020
Olympics.WRESTLING, a sport which for every and all reasons should be
forever enshrined,guarenteed and held in the most high regard as an
OLYPMIC sport,wrestling the SECOND Olympic sport, added after
running.....imagine that, remove WRESTLING from the Olympics as a
sport........ridiculous,idiot,retarded,such are the words to describe the decision and hence also the IOC itself..
The
news came down from IOC headquarters in Switzerland early Tuesday and
is certainly a surprise. Wrestling is among the oldest sports known to
man. It's mentioned in the Bible. It has connections to the ancient
games, centuries ago held in Greece. But it's on its way out, at least
for 2020, barring a miracle.That's right,WRESTLING.I just can't see any
reason why the IOC decided to remove wrestling from 2020 Games.
Wrestling is a popular sport.Wrestling, imagine, wrestling, the second
ORIGINAL Olympic sport, right up to the present day no less, all those
years, all those Olympics, for well over 2700 years, imagine.Why, and
how wrestling has been removed by the IOC one cannot really comprehend
nor imagine. Consider now, the joke sports of
golf,table
tennis,badminton,canoeing.The IOC considers these magnificent and
important sports of man and humanity, but not it seems, wrestling.That's
right, wrestling.Wrestling which,right behind running was the second
OLYMPIC ORIGINAL sport.
Right there from the very beginnings,
there it was,and is, a sport THAT GREAT, a sport of THAT
IMPORT........Table tennis only originated as a sport, in Britain, in
1880,thereabouts,roundabouts,badminton in the
1700's by the British
army, in India,golf in the 1400's in Scotland.......the origin of
canoeing as a recreation and sport is often attributed to Scottish
explorer John MacGregor (1825–1892,note wrestling from the beginnings of
the Olympics,like 2700 years ago.Caneoing began with the 1936 Hitler
Olympics,Berlin.Badminton since 1992,table tennis
since 1988,golf in 1900 and 1904 only, to appear 2016 and 2020...the IOC is not sparing us their idiocy.
Consider
now that the Olympic Games began over 2,700 years ago in Olympia, in
southwest Greece.The earliest myths regarding the origin of the games
are recounted by the Greek historian, Pausanias,and others who have
differing versions, but just as the IOC doesn't like wrestling, I don't
like the other Olympic origin tales,so I'm going with this version.
According to the story, the dactyl Herakles (not to be confused with the
son of Zeus) and four of his brothers, Paeonaeus, Epimedes, Iasius and
Idas, raced at Olympia to entertain the newborn Zeus. He crowned the
victor with an olive tree wreath, (which thus became a peace symbol)
which also explains the four year interval, bringing the games around
every fifth year (counting inclusively).The other Olympian gods (so
named because they lived permanently on Mount Olympus), would also
engage in wrestling, jumping and running contests.The Olympic Games,the
Olympia, the Olympics, were a series of athletic competitions among
representatives of city-states of Ancient Greece. They were held in
honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin.
Historical
records indicate that they began in 776 BC in Olympia. They continued
to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, until the emperor
Theodosius I suppressed them in 394 AD as part of the campaign to impose
Christianity as the state religion of Rome. The games were usually held
every four years, or olympiad, which became a unit of time in
historical chronologies. During the celebration of the games, an Olympic
Truce was enacted so that athletes could travel from their countries to
the games in safety. The prizes for the victors were wreaths of laurel
leaves. The games became a political tool used by city-states to assert
dominance over their rivals. Politicians would announce political
alliances at the games, and in times of war, priests would offer
sacrifices to the gods for victory.At first, the Olympic Games lasted
only one day, but eventually grew to five days. The Olympic Games
originally contained one event: the stadion (or "stade") race, a short
sprint measuring between 180 and 240 metres (590 and 790
ft), or the
length of the stadium. The length of the race is uncertain, since
tracks found at archeological sites, as well as literary evidence,
provide conflicting measurements. Runners had to pass five stakes that
divided the lanes: one stake at the start, another at the finish, and
three stakes in between.
The diaulos, or two-stade race, was
introduced in 724 BC, during the 14th Olympic games. The race was a
single lap of the stadium, approximately 400 metres (1,300 ft), and
scholars debate whether or not the runners had individual "turning"
posts for the return leg of the race, or whether all the runners
approached a common post, turned, and
then raced back to the starting line.
A
third foot race, the dolichos, was introduced in 720 BC. Accounts of
the race present conflicting evidence as to the length of the dolichos;
however, the length of the race was 18–24 laps, or about three miles (5
km). The runners would begin and end their event in the stadium proper,
but the race course would wind its way through the Olympic grounds. The
course often would flank important shrines and statues in the sanctuary,
passing by the Nike statue by the temple of Zeus before returning to
the stadium.
The last running event added to the Olympic program
was the hoplitodromos, or "Hoplite race", introduced in 520 BC and
traditionally run as the last race of the Olympic Games. The runners
would run either a single or double diaulos (approximately 400 or 800
yards) in full or partial armour, carrying a shield and additionally
equipped either with
greaves or a helmet. The course they used for these runs were made out of clay, with sand over the clay.
Over
the years, more events were added: boxing (pygme/pygmachia), wrestling
(pale) in 708 BC, and pankration, a fighting competition combining both
elements. Wrestling was also the final decisive event in the ancient
pentathlon.
Boxing became increasingly brutal over the
centuries. Initially, soft leather covered their fingers, but
eventually, hard leather with metal sometimes was used. The fights had
no rest periods and no rules against hitting a man while he was down.
Bouts continued until one man either surrendered or died- however,
killing an opponent wasn't a good thing, as the dead boxer was
automatically declared the winner.
Other events include chariot
racing, as well as a pentathlon, consisting of wrestling, stadion, long
jump, javelin throw, and discus throw (the latter three were not
separate events).In the chariot racing event, it was not the rider, but
the owner of the chariot and team who was considered to be the
competitor, so one owner could win more than one of the top
spots.Contested in the first modern Olympics in 1896 and part of the
ancient Games in Olympia, wrestling will now join seven other candidate
sports battling for one spot in a revamped programme.Wrestling joins
baseball
and softball, making a joint bid, martial arts karate and wushu,
rollersports, wakeboarding, squash and sports climbing as candidates for
the one open spot.Russian wrestling federation chief Mikhail
Mamiashvili was shocked by the decision but was confident his sport
would remain in the Games.
"I'm absolutely convinced this ancient
sport will retain its status," Mamiashvili, who won an Olympic gold
medal in 1988, told Reuters. The International Olympic Committee is
dropping wrestling from competition after the 2016 Games in Rio de
Janeiro, the result of some elaborate secret ballot it holds every so
often to determine its 25 "core sports."
In part because golf and
rugby are coming to the Olympics, something had to go. This time it was
wrestling, apparently edged out by the modern pentathlon for
survival.As such, both freestyle (somewhat similar to what you see in
American high schools and colleges) and Greco Roman, each of which dated
back to the 1896 Games in Greece, will soon be history. Wrestling can
try to get back in, but the odds are long.
It's golf,table
tennis,badminton,canoeing that should never have been granted access in
the first place.Forget arguing the various strengths and weaknesses of
each sport. That's often a cultural opinion. This is a global event and
tastes vary. In the United States, badminton is considered a joke,
something played at backyard barbeques, even occasionally while sober.
In the overcrowded cities of third-world countries, however, it's a way
to play tennis – basically street tennis for the non-wealthy. They don't
have a lot of All-Lawn Tennis Clubs in Malaysia. Millions take
badminton seriously and consider watching it at the highest level a
sight to behold.And that's part of why badminton is a fine Olympic
sport.Badminton also plays to another Olympic strength – winning the
gold medal is a huge deal to those athletes, the pinnacle for most. So
is winning a gold medal in modern pentathlon. Same for wrestling.
That's
not at all the case for golf, where a gold medal isn't a green jacket.
However, it could still feature in 2020 should the IOC include it as an
additional sport when it meets in Buenos Aires in September. Wrestling
will compete with baseball/softball, roller sports, rock climbing,
squash, wakeboarding and wushu, a Chinese martial art, for the remaining
place, with each presenting their case for inclusion to the executive
board in May.The 25 core sports the IOC guards............The 25 sports
are: athletics, rowing, badminton, basketball, boxing, canoeing,
cycling, equestrian, fencing, football, gymnastics, weightlifting,
handball, hockey, judo, aquatics, modern pentathlon, taekwondo, tennis,
table tennis, shooting, archery, triathlon, sailing and
volleyball.What's wrong with this
list.........well..................badminton, how utterly ridiculous as a
sport........canoeing...........oh please there's just no sparing us is
there........table tennis...............the favorite sport of mental
patients
in mental institutions without a doubt. Then there's also
golf, which they have added as a sport in Rio and there for will be in
the 202 Olympics as well.....golf, you know, where these lads take hours
for a few of them to hit a tiny white ball around the course,and see
how many can (and they do), land the ball BEHIND the golf hole, and have
it bounce up and backwards and land, lo and behold, in the cup.Golf
will be an Olympic sport in 2016. Ridiculous.
Golf. How it came
to be that it's worthy/necessary for Olympic inclusion is typically
hilarious/nonsensical.So they want to remove one of the original sports
of the Olympics in favor of..........badminton,table
tennis,canoeing,golf.........how utterly and
completely..idiotic...........retarded...........weak
minded.........chaotic..........confused...........and..................quite
plainly and utterly...................................lacking in
intelligence, but then the IOC has rarely been noted for being much more
than that in the first place. It has been said that one can talk to the
IOC but it is a body compeletly
devoid of reasoning abilities.But
what we will see,now, is many nations, supporting the retention of
wrestling,contrary to the IOC,and the IOC will see and be made to
understand, that the OLYMPICS is and are those
nations, the nations
of the world, THEY are the OLYMPICS, and NOT the IOC.Why can’t IOC just
add another sport and keep wrestling, you ask? Because the organization
values exclusivity and clubbiness and self-importance. There are 26
sports now. Would it hurt anyone or compromise the Olympics or be a huge
economic burden to have 27 sports on the summer program? No.
Instead,
wrestling — quite possibly the world’s oldest sport, a sport with an
Olympic tradition going back to ancient times — gets the boot. Going
into this executive board vote, modern pentathlon, the eccentric sport
that combines swimming, fencing, running, equestrian and shooting,
seemed most at risk. But political connections may save modern
pentathlon.Why should not political connections save wrestling.Why
should not ALL the nations who support wrestling save wrestling? Why
should NOT sports such as table tennis,badminton, canoeing,and the
utterly and completely idiot golf not even yet ALL go out in it's place?
Such is the IOC, a joke, a really bad joke, a collection of ridiculous
clowns all proceeding from bad to worse in their decisions with respect
to the Olympics.
Of the decision,most have echoed these
comments.....“I can’t imagine an Olympic games without wrestling,” says
Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson, who won four national
championships at Iowa State and an Olympic gold medal in 2004. “That’s
not an option. We have time here to show the IOC they made the wrong
decision. It’s up to us and the
Iranians and Russians and everyone else to help them know this.”This includes the Japanese,Australian,British,French
German,Turkish,Arab nations etc etc etc..........imagine, THE NATIONS which make up the Olympics, don't support the
decision,
and DEMAND it's reversal...................and the IOC should
recant,repent,apologize AND place wrestling back where it belongs.If
they want to remove something, let them remove something idiot,such as
golf,table tennis,badminton and or canoeing.The IOC is about to learn
that the nations of the world prefer to eat bread,the bread of
wrestling, not the bitter cake of the removal of wrestling as an olympic
sport.
