Wrestling dropped from 2020 Olympic Games

Wrestling has been dropped from the 2020 Games by the International Olympic Committee to make way for a new sport.

Wrestling will now have to vie with seven sports hoping to be added back to the Olympic programme. A decision on which sport will be added in 2020 will be made when the IOC meet in Buenos Aires in September.

"The news from the IOC is extremely disappointing," said British Wrestling chief executive Colin Nicholson.

"We hope that wrestling will be added back to the programme when the full IOC meet in September.

"If wrestling is taken out of the Olympics, it will be a great disappointment as it is an extremely popular sport around the world."

Wrestling is now vying with baseball/softball, squash, karate, sport climbing, wakeboarding, wushu and roller sports for a place in the 2020 Games. The sport, which combines freestyle and Greco-Roman events, goes back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

It has featured in every games apart from Paris 1900. At last year's London Olympics, the sport featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events. Modern Pentathlon and Taekwondo were also viewed as being at risk when the IOC committee met in Lausanne, Switzerland on Tuesday.

They considered a report looking into more than 30 separate areas, including TV ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping and global popularity before coming to a decision.
The Olympics consists of 26 sports with events dropping out before new sports can be added to the schedule.

Golf and rugby sevens will be part of the programme for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro after winning inclusion in 2010. The IOC will also decide in September whether Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo will host the 2020 Games.