Governing body FILA | Events 18 (men: 12; women: 6) | |
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Wrestling had been contested at the Summer Olympic Games since the sport was introduced in the ancient Olympic Games in 708 BC. When the modern Olympic Games resumed in Athens in 1896, wrestling (in the form of Greco-Roman wrestling) became a focus of the Games, with the exception of the 1900 Summer Olympics when wrestling did not appear on the program. Freestyle wrestling and weight classes both made their first appearance in 1904. The women's competition was introduced in 2004. In February 2013, the IOC voted to remove the sport from the 2020 Summer Olympics onwards. After much publicity about that surprise result, on 8 September 2013, the IOC announced that wrestling would remain part of the Summer Olympics in 2020.
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Possible cancellation
Because of some costs, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been under pressure to reduce the number of events and the number of athletes in each summer game. The IOC had adopted a system where "core sports" would continue indefinitely in future Olympics, but "non-core" sports would be selected for inclusion on an Olympic game-by-game basis. Wrestling had been one of the 26 core sports. However, following the 2012 London Olympics, the IOC's Executive Committee conducted a study of the 26 core sports in terms of their success at the London Olympics as well as world-wide grassroots support. The study sought to trim one core sport so that starting with the 2020 Olympics, only 25 core sports would continue to make room for one non-core sport. On February 12, 2013, the IOC Executive Board voted to recommend that wrestling be dropped as a core sport.
The international federation that governs wrestling (then known as FILA and now as United World Wrestling) responded with a statement the same day:
FILA was greatly astonished by today's recommendation of the IOC Executive Board not to maintain wrestling among the 25 core sports for the 2020 Olympic Games. FILA will take all necessary measures to convince the IOC Executive Board and IOC members of the aberration of such decision against one of the founding sports of the ancient and modern Olympic Games.
On February 15, FILA held an emergency meeting and its President, Raphaël Martinetti, asked for a vote of confidence. When only 50% of his Board voted to support him, he resigned as FILA President. Although wrestlers would be able to continue to compete in the World Games, United States wrestlers expressed grave disappointment at the possibility that they could be excluded from future Olympics.
Wrestling had to compete with seven other non-core sports—baseball/softball, squash, karate, sport climbing, wakeboarding, wushu and roller sports—for a place in the 2020 Games. On September 8, 2013, the IOC announced that wrestling had won the bid as a non-core sport and would remain part of the 2020 Summer Olympics. Nenad Lalović, the new president of FILA, was largely credited with bringing the sport back into contention after wrestling made the short list in May. Lalović following the announcement stated, "Normally this is done in a few years, we did it in a few months. It was a question of our survival" and that, "We did all we could, we changed our sport and the federation was successful. We continue to work tomorrow."
All-time medal table – Freestyle – 1904–2012
Source: Wrestling Freestyle Olympics Medal Table at olympicmedals.com