coldharvest wrote:The Olympic committee are such a shame to sports.
Freyja wrote:coldharvest wrote:The Olympic committee are such a shame to sports.
Exactly. Why would they do this? As it said in the article, it's one of the oldest Olympic sports. That's like editing a holiday out of the calender. It's a tradition.
coldharvest wrote:Freyja wrote:coldharvest wrote:The Olympic committee are such a shame to sports.
Exactly. Why would they do this? As it said in the article, it's one of the oldest Olympic sports. That's like editing a holiday out of the calender. It's a tradition.
The Olympics is about money and showing the Third World where it's place is.
Why do London, Beijing etc get new stadiums, roads and other assorted bits of infrastructure in the name of international sport when Chechnya and Botswana need that shit more?
Freyja wrote:coldharvest wrote:Freyja wrote:coldharvest wrote:The Olympic committee are such a shame to sports.
Exactly. Why would they do this? As it said in the article, it's one of the oldest Olympic sports. That's like editing a holiday out of the calender. It's a tradition.
The Olympics is about money and showing the Third World where it's place is.
Why do London, Beijing etc get new stadiums, roads and other assorted bits of infrastructure in the name of international sport when Chechnya and Botswana need that shit more?
I've never really thought about it in that way. They should build stadiums and etc in places like that, it could potentially help their economy greatly, if they hosted the Olympics or some other major sporting event.
Wrestling Selected for 2020 Olympic Games
The Sport Was Chosen Over Bids From Squash, Baseball and Softball.
By MATTHEW FUTTER - WALL STREET JOURNAL
Wrestling regained entry into the Olympic Games program Sunday after the International Olympic Committee selected the sport for inclusion in the 2020 and 2024 Games over bids from squash, baseball and softball.
Wrestling won on the first ballot, gaining a majority 49 votes, with baseball and softball getting 24 votes and squash getting 22.
"Thank you for this opportunity to save our sport," wrestling federation President Nenad Llalovic said ahead of the vote. "It is not an underestimation to say this is the most important day in the 3,000-year history of our sport."
The vote ended a tumultuous six months for wrestling, which had a near-death experience in February when the executive board voted not to include it in the core program of 25 Olympic sports for the 2020 and 2024 Games, a decision that garnered withering criticism from the international sports community.
That forced wrestling to compete with seven other sports vying to gain the recommendation of the IOC's executive board for the final sport in the 2020 Games. In May, the board selected baseball, softball, squash and wrestling for Sunday's final vote in front of the full IOC.
Ahead of the vote Sunday, IOC member Richard Pound criticized a process that looked headed toward doing nothing more than reinstating one of the oldest Olympic sports rather than bringing in a new one. Mr. Pound suggested the IOC put off the vote for five months until meetings at the Sochi Olympics, and come up with a process that might ultimately reinstate wrestling and get a new sport into the Olympics.
But Gerhard Heiberg, an IOC member from Norway, and IOC President Jacques Rogge, urged the committee to stick with the agreed-upon process in fairness to the federations that had worked toward Sunday's meeting expecting an answer. "They all expect a decision and I cannot see why we should postpone," Mr. Heiberg said. "Yes we may end up with wrestling but that is a good thing."
Mr. Rogge said wrestling was eliminated from the core program because its international federation was so poorly managed. It had no athletes on its executive board or with any voting rights. No women had positions of power. The sport's rules were difficult to understand and the sport had been resistant to altering its presentation to make it more television friendly.
In recent months, wrestling changed the governance of its international federation, changed its rules to make the sport more active, added two new medal events for women and eliminated two for men.
"I love wrestling," said Prince Albert of Monaco said Saturday night. "It should stay in the program."
Mr. Llalovic and former U.S. Olympic Committee Jim Scherr led a presentation filled with humility and gratitude and an emotional testimony by the Daniel Igali the Nigerian-Canadian wrestling medalist. "I grew up as one of 20 siblings and if not for wrestling I might not have gotten much to eat," Mr. Igali told the IOC members.
"There was a mistake," Shekh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, an IOC member from Kuwait, said after the presentation. He was one of several IOC members who spoke in support of wrestling before the vote.
In a statement after the vote, Mr. Llalovic said, "I want to offer my sincere gratitude to each member of the International Olympic Committee that voted to save Olympic wrestling today. With this vote, you have shown that the steps we have taken to improve our sport have made a difference. I assure each of you that our modernization will not stop now. We will continue to strive to be the best partner to the Olympic Movement that we can be."
Mr. Rogge said the IOC expects to examine the core program every four years.
Return to Movies , Entertainment & Sport
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 36 guests