Olympic takedown: IOC votes to boot wrestling out of Games

Wrestling suffered a stunning takedown Tuesday when the International Olympic Committee’s executive board recommended that the history-rich sport be dropped from the Olympics, beginning with the 2020 Games.

The move, which caught U.S. and international wrestling officials off guard, could affect future U.S. medal counts as well as college and high school wrestling programs.

“I was very shocked. I felt blindsided. We had no clue that vote would come out that way,” Brandon Slay said from the Olympic Training Center, where he is an assistant coach for the U.S. national freestyle team.

Slay grew up in Amarillo in the days before wrestling was a UIL sport, yet he went on to claim a gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

“It would be a sad day if our oldest and greatest sport would be taken away from the largest athletic event in the world,” Slay said.

The executive board was charged with trimming one sport to get to 25 core sports so that another might be added. Many assumed the sport on the chopping block would be modern pentathlon, which seemed to have little going for it but its heritage — it was created by Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin.

Wrestling must now battle with baseball and softball, which were dumped after the 2008 Olympics, as well as karate, wakeboarding, roller sports, sport climbing, squash and wushu to be included in the 202o Games. A final decision will be made by the IOC’s executive board in September.

No existing nation has claimed more Olympic wrestling medals than the United States, which has won 50 golds and 124 overall medals since the modern Olympics began in 1896. Russia has won 51 medals, and the former Soviet Union amassed 116.

Last year the U.S. picked up two gold medals and a bronze on the men’s side and almost added another medal as Tervel Dlagnev, a third-place finisher for Arlington High School in the 2003 UIL state meet, just missed a bronze.

Nationally, wrestling is the sixth most popular high school sport for boys behind football, track and field, basketball, baseball and soccer, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

In Texas, wrestling for boys and girls was added in the 1998-99 school year. Before that, for about a decade, the Texas Interscholastic Wrestling Association organized the sport.

In the 2011-12 school year, there were 10,582 boys wrestling at 270 Texas schools, according to the federation. Only California, Illinois, New York, Ohio and Michigan had more male wrestlers. Texas now has more than traditional power Pennsylvania and three times as many as Oklahoma. Texas has more girls wrestling in high school — 2,416 last year — than any other state.

“Hopefully, it will not have a negative impact,” Peter Contreras, the UIL assistant athletic director in charge of wrestling, said of the IOC decision. “Our numbers have dictated adding another conference.”

This year, for the first time, there will be Class 5A and 4A competitions for boys and girls at the state wrestling meet; the boys’ state meet will be at the Delco Center and the girls’ at Burger Center on Feb. 21-23.

Contreras said Texas high school wrestlers face the same obstacle as boys soccer players: There are few opportunities for them in college in the state. Collegiate wrestling has been in decline for years, affected by both Title IX and budget cuts in athletic departments. According to a spokesman for USA Wrestling, there were about 150 Division I wrestling programs a few years ago, but that number is now in the 70s.

Once wrestling loses its Olympic status, it will be that much easier for more colleges to drop it. Four Big 12 schools wrestle — Oklahoma State (which is ranked No. 1 in the country), Oklahoma, Iowa State and West Virginia.

“It’s just devastating. There’s no one in the sport of wrestling in the world that had any idea that this was going to happen,” Oklahoma State coach John Smith said in a statement.

“It would impact wrestlers all around the world,” Slay said. “It’s one of the most diverse sports. The truth is anybody can wrestle, and you can’t say that about other sports. … We have had guys win who were missing a leg. We’ve had wrestlers who were blind.”

Curley Culp calls the sport “wrasslin’.” The Austin resident, who was recently inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, also was an NCAA wrestling champion who barely missed making the U.S. Olympic team.

“It teaches hard work, dedication and focus,” Culp said.“I certainly don’t agree with the decision.”

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