by Nick Martin

Early last month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to reinstate wrestling for the Summer Games. Wrestling’s first appearance in the games goes as far back as 706 BC, so when the IOC dropped it from the Olympics because it was hard for spectators to understand, wrestling officials knew there needed to be reforms. The head of FILA, Wrestling’s official organization, stepped down and a new one was elected, Nenad Lalovic, a Serbian. They changed the whole dynamic in wrestling from three two-minute rounds to two three-minute rounds.

The vote to reinstate wrestling came at the price of squash as well as baseball/softball not being allowed back into the games. All of these sports are lacking appearances in many countries in the world, making them unfair for an international competition.

When asked what he thought of the decision, junior Ben Schram, a member of the BHS wrestling team whom plans on making a run for state this year, said, “It meant a lot to me that wrestling was put back into the Olympics because wrestling doesn’t have a professional league. The last thing for wrestling is the Olympics so it’s the ultimate goal for wrestlers.”

Josh Rogers, a varsity baseball junior, gave the same support, “Yeah I do think wrestling deserves it. Wrestling was one of the first original sports and has always been in the Olympics. The Olympic Committee should have never thought about taking the sport out. Unlike Olympic baseball, wrestling has different winners from all countries around the world, every Olympic cycle. For baseball, only a few countries participate and the final is usually between the same few teams.”