This week’s stunning Olympic revelation that all running events are likely to be be scrapped from 2020 on would make Baron DeCoubertin turn in his grave.
Sorry, did I say running? I meant wrestling, which to many is a calumny of equal proportions.
As a foundation event at the first modern Olympics in 1896 (along with its ancient Olympic pedigree) wrestling’s unexpected axing from official ‘core event’ status should ring alarm bells for all other sports bar athletics and swimming.
I’m expecting ‘core event’ designation to go the same way as its political predecessor, ‘core promise’.
Unlike modern Olympics founder, DeCoubertin, wrestling is not yet quite dead and buried.
Allegedly, a slim hope of resurrection exists if the sport ‘modernises’ its rules to appeal to contemporary global audiences.
Archery has been cited as one sport retrieved from the brink by ‘updating’ its scoring format.
I have to be honest, in my London Olympic knob twiddling, the usual five minutes I allotted to the archery looked pretty much the same as all previous Olympics. Maybe the bows had more bells, whistles and pulleys, but it was still basically a bunch of steely eyed folk taking aim at something in the distance.
Anyway, with its current status on the outer, wrestling will have to convince Olympic chiefs it has done enough rule-botoxing to resist spirited claims from Softball, BMX, and even Wushu, a Chinese martial art form.
My disappointment with wrestling’s fall from Olympic grace is not from any particular affection.
It’s easy to appreciate the enormous strength and skill of those lithe one-piece wearers, but let’s face it, in Australia, wrestling never quite got a foot in the door when our colonial fathers wanted to get sweaty outdoors.
For some odd reason, while we ignored the sport, the US embraced it, as still do many other countries in one local variant or another.
I would be pleased to argue on behalf of Olympic wrestling purely on martial arts balance alone.
It is one of the two combat grappling sports (along with Judo). This is balanced, in my view, by the two striking sports (taekwondo and boxing).
If the Olympic chiefs are trying to appease Asian expectations, I’d say having two European and two Asian martial arts forms seems a genuine bipartisanship.
As any MMA fan knows, a good grounding in at least one representative of each form of combat (stand-up and ground) is essential for UFC aspirations.
In the early days of the UFC, it was hard to get a bet on a wrestler when they faced a striking specialist, who usually found himself haplessly on his back before he could land a jab.
Some readers would know that MMA was on the program of ancient Olympics, under the alias Pankration, but that’s another story.
Did I mention my eternal dismay at tennis gaining its Olympic guernsey?
I’m guessing Roger, Serena et al would rather have another grand slam cup on the mantlepiece than an Olympic gold medal.
I find it hard to think of Olympic tennis as anything but exhibition matches. And I think of the Grand Slam circuit, with its four championships per year, as a kind of inverted Olympiad anyway. Why should they have two olympics?
As for golf, now teeing off for Rio, you can guess what my feelings are on that.
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