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The International Olympic Committee recently announced that, starting in 2020, wrestling will be dropped from its list of competitive sports. What the IOC didn’t realize was that it was picking a fight with people that are used to doing hard things. People that are used to being knocked down only to get up again and again. People that may not even know how to back away from a fight — ever.
If there is one part of society I would not want to challenge, it's the wrestling community. This is a group of people that dedicate themselves to physical toughness, mental resilience, and have a competitive fire that burns hotter than almost any other sport. This is a group of individuals that are used to taking responsibility for their actions, making major sacrifices just to compete, and then giving everything they have in hand-to-hand combat against someone that wants to humiliate them and put them on their backs.
The wrestling community will not run and hide from this challenge. These people live to stand alone in the center of conflict battling until exhaustion in defiance of submission. Many wrestlers begin learning their craft as children and then continue to give back to their sport by coaching, officiating and motivating others to wrestle. For most it is more then a hobby — it is a lifestyle.
Social media has been blowing up with support to “save wrestling.” The hashtag #SaveOlympicWrestling has been trending on Twitter ever since the announcement was made. Wrestling legend, undefeated national champ and Olympic gold medal winner Jordan Burroughs offered these words of encouragement to his more than 69,000 followers on Twitter: “It's not over yet. We will keep fighting to save the sport we love. Don't stop dreaming and don't stop believing.”
A petition has been started on change.org and over 55,000 people have already signed it.
K.J. Pilcher, a multimedia journalist from Iowa Source Media, wrote on Twitter, “The IOC has found a way, besides alien invasion, to unite Americans, Russians and Iranians. Fight begins anew.” It is comments like those that highlight the strength of the wrestling fraternity.
T-shirts, websites, petitions, pictures and other mediums will be used to give wrestlers a voice. In the end, the IOC may still choose to keep the modern pentathlon and synchronized swimming as sports in the Olympics, but don’t count on this loyal band of wrestlers to go down without a fight. This may be the ultimate David vs. Goliath fight. Or a more appropriate analogy may be the match from the 2000 Olympic Games between Rulon Gardner and Aleksandr Karelin, where Gardner, the underdog from Afton, Wyo., overcame all odds to defeat the previous champ who hadn’t lost in over 13 years.
One thing is for sure: Wrestlers will “leave it all on the mat” and battle until the final whistle.
Dave Specht is a former college basketball player trying to find his way back into the good graces of his father, a long-time wrestling official, by writing this article.
