What effect will the loss of wrestling have?

Today the IOC shocked the world by voting to remove Wrestling from the Olympic Programme, rather than the bookies' favourite, Modern Pentathlon and Field Hockey. But what I want to know is how will this affect the Olympic Games of the future?

Needless to say I was shocked to find out that Wrestling was dropped from the games this sport has been held at all games bar one (1900) and has become a staple of the games for many. I expected Table Tennis or Badminton to get the axe due to their general dullness and complete dominace by China as well as the cheating scandal that faced Badminton at the London Olympics.

In contrast Wrestling is a global sport in which 29 nations won medals in during the 2012 Olympics, and although it doesn't receive much media attention it greatly affects how the medal table shapes out.
Take Russia for example, seldom seen away from the top 5 of the Olympic medal table, due in part to the success of their nation's wrestling team. In London they secured 4 of the 24 golds that were taken home to Russia and in Beijing Russia would have only managed a fourth place finish on the medal table if Wrestling wasn't part of the core programme.

The presence of Wrestling at the Five Ring Circus allows many countries to achieve their only medals: Azerbaijan won the majority of their Olympic medals at ExCeL while Uzbekistan won its only gold of 2012 on the wrestling mat.

The loss of Wrestling will hinder Baku's chances of hosting the Olympics in the future, without the sport Azerbaijan will struggle to get onto the medal board. Due to a lack of sporting success the IOC would hesitate to award the games to Baku as this may cause lack of interest in the host nation. Ironically if Baku were still in the running for the 2020 games Wrestling almost certainly wouldn't be dropped, their bid included Wrestling being held at the 25,000 seat Crystal Hall that hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest.

However from a British point of view this many be good news: Russia will be less of a threat on the medal table, a new sport will be introduced (most likely Squash or Karate) which Team GB will have better chances in.

I think it is a shame that we are likely to not see Wrestling at the 2020 Olympics although the competitive Brit in me smiles at the likelihood of beating Russia on the medal table in years to come. I also am glad that Modern Pentathlon has been saved from the chopping block however for the growth of the Olympic movement in more nations I believe that we need the sport of Wrestling to act as a catalyst for the growth.

If you wish to support Wrestlings bid to return to the Olympics click here