Recently, the decision has been made to remove the sport of wrestling from the Olympics in the year 2020. This heavily-debated decision was made because it is said that wrestling does not produce adequate ticket sales and is not popular enough on the global scale. Therefore, it has been proposed that it be replaced with karate or rock climbing. With this major change in the Olympics, many are bound to suffer, such as Olympic hopefuls or even nations that are successful in wrestling. Wrestling should not be removed from the Olympics because it is a historic and quintessential part of the event.
Wrestling is a perfect Olympic sport for the modern world. It is a combination of speed, strength, agility, hard work, and dedication. Because of these traits, wrestlers in general are better, harder working individuals than non wrestlers. Also, wrestling is a coeducational sport meaning that both men and women can compete in it (albeit separately in the Olympics). These factors combine to make wrestling the perfect sport for the world to join in together for competition. The removal of wrestling from the Olympics may remove a large motivating factor for dedicated wrestlers to work hard. As the great wrestler and coach Dan Gable once said, “[o]nce you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy”. This quotation personifies the soul of wrestling and shows that wrestling is the perfect sport for a hard-working, motivated society.
Why would the oldest and most widespread sport in the world be removed from the Olympics? Since the beginning of the Olympics in ancient Greece, some type of wrestling has been included and been very popular. Today, wrestling is still a beloved sport in many countries, including Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, and the United States. Wrestling is embedded within the cultures of many countries and has a great deal of historical significance. In the 2012 Olympics, there were 71 countries that participated