In mid-February, the International Olympic Committee decided to drop wrestling as a sport from the 2020 Olympics and after. Wrestling will still be a contested sport in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Bearing News asked students:
1. As one of the oldest Olympic sports, at least dated back to 708 BC, what do you think dropping the sport is saying about the Olympics?
2. What Olympic sport(s) do you usually watch and which ones do you not?
“I think it’s saying that they’re kind of revolutionizing it, growing into more modern sports rather than what’s old and traditional. I think they should keep it, if it’s been around so long.”
“I don’t watch the Olympics, [but] if other people want it to stay, [it’s] what seems right.”
“I would say it’s almost like breaking tradition, if you will, and kind of getting rid some past culture that the world held all together I guess. It’s something that everyone had in common, and by dropping it, that kind of breaks apart what we all have in common, our common interest.”
“If anything, I would probably watch the pole vaulting or gymnastics, because that’s a little bit more interesting; it’s just different.”
“It’s saying that they just want to change from what they’ve been doing. I don’t really think that it’s something that should be done though, because the Olympics are talking about all the sports that they have in the world and saying that all of these are sports. It’s a way for all the countries to come together and by taking something out of that, it’s kind of saying, ‘Oh, we don’t really want all of the countries to get together in this area.’ And we have sports in other random areas like Javelin Throwing, and they’re not going to get rid of that, but they’re going to get rid of wrestling. It’s just kind of making priority over weird stuff. It’s definitely going to affect [high school] because people think of it as, ‘Oh it’s the Olympics, OK it’s a real sport.’ But football has its own league and then you have the Olympics, and they won’t have the same respect as they have now.”
“I watch swimming because I’m a swimmer, sometimes diving, and that’s about it.”
“I feel like that’s a tradition, and it’s been here longer than any other sport so I feel like, ‘What’s the reason behind taking it off?’ It isn’t right. If anything, it should be swimming that should be taken off. They’re losing a lot of tradition if they’re taking wrestling away. There were probably a bunch of people looking forward in their years to going to the Olympics for wrestling, so of course it’s going to that up with the schools around the world.”
“I like to watch basketball, and like I said, I hate swimming.”
“It’s saying that the Olympics are becoming more modern and losing tradition. I know that people are going to be bummed about wrestling being cut, but I feel that maybe it’s not meeting the as many viewers as the Olympics would like. It’s run its course.”
“I usually watch gymnastics and synchronized swimming because it’s so funny and cool. Wrestling is only fun when it’s hot guys.”
By Renata Williams
