Olympic Committee Recommends Dropping Wrestling from 2020 Summer Games

You don't have to follow legitimate wrestling or the Olympic Games to cry "foul" over the International  Olympic Committee's (IOC) executive committee's recent recommendation to drop the sport from the 2020 Summer Games. That's right: the sport associated with the original, ancient Greek Olympics is going to be dumped. This action, and its indefensible rationale, has generated worldwide condemnation. The IOC managed to pin a truly worldwide sport to the mat of TV popularity and commercial endorsement.

Antique Greek Cup Showing Athletes
(photo: British Museum)

Wrestling's advocates in the United States have quickly published op-ed articles, interviews, and other publicity initiatives protesting the IOC's outrageous decision. A Bloomberg video segment with Fortress Investment Group principal Michael Novogratz articulates the case against the IOC's decision. Among the printed, high-profile opinion pieces was one former Secretary of Defense (and Princeton University wrestler) Donald Rumsfeld published in The Washington Post.

Rumsfeld mentions that his athletic activity helped develop his ways of thinking and his character. He has considerable company in that line of reasoning. When I was a pre-teen, I had what today are called "self-esteem" issues. I had just failed a junior life-saving program that, along with other disastrous life changes, brought my self-confidence down to zero. My father thought one way to reverse that trend was to take boxing lessons at a private, somewhat privileged neighborhood athletic club. However, one look at boxing and I wanted out. I thought my chances of getting slugged in the ring were far greater than any punishment I could deliver. Wrestling seemed a safer play.

The wrestling lessons were taught by the boxing instructor, a short man who could argue with either his wits or his fists. My usual opponent was an age peer who lived in the neighborhood, but didn't fit the prosperous area's demographic profile. He lived in an apartment above some shops. He was raised by a single mother and I believe went to public school. Both circumstances were unusual for a 7th grade Catholic kid in Forest Hills at that time. He was a better wrestler than I was, and he was quicker and stronger than I was.

There was a public competition at the athletic club; my usual nemesis and I were names on the wrestling card. This time, I beat the odds, mostly by using a defensive strategy. My opponent never really displayed what he could do, and I won. Did I feel good about the victory? No. I didn't really win as much as avoided defeat. Much more significantly, I felt badly for my opponent. The result clearly hammered his self-confidence. I felt guilty that happened. How would his life have changed had he performed as he had practiced? As a consequence of his defeat, was he destined to be trapped in a world where he always ended up on the wrong side of the tracks, the losing end of an argument, the runner-up in a two-person race?

Clarissa Mei Ling Chun
US Female Olympic Wrestler
Bronze Medal/London 2012 Olympic Games
(photo: Reuters, and shown in the Christian Science Monitor)

I realize people overcome disappointment, and that is as much character building (maybe even more so) as the cult of winning fosters. Meanwhile, the experiences and lessons from my brief encounter with wrestling have stayed with me for a lifetime. They have done so for others, from august American cabinet ministers to anonymous athletes from obscure nations. They have done so for centuries. Why the International Olympic Committee chose to drop wrestling from its 2020 Games defies common sense and global experience.