Wrestling decision needs to be reversed

After watching wrestling legend Dan Gable on the news this morning and hearing him give advice on how to get involved, I thought I would relay this information to those who have an interest in wrestling.

Wrestling was recently voted out of the Olympic games beginning in 2020. There is another vote on the matter coming up in a few months in St. Petersburg, Russia, and much needs to be done in order to get a reversal of this decision.

As stated by Rich Bender at www.themat.com, “More different countries won medals in wrestling than nearly every sport on the Olympic program including sports such as swimming, which awards many more medals. This fact alone provides justification for wrestling to rightfully be included on the Olympic Games program. It shows our universal reach.”

Wrestling has been a part of the Olympics since the ancient games in 708 B.C., and has been included since the modern games were reintroduced in 1896. As Gable said, “the Olympics is the pinnacle of the sport.”

The next vote will be to drop wrestling in favor of three of the following sports: baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, squash, sport climbing, wakeboard, and wushu. This seems ludicrous at best to me.

The city of Yuma has been a hotbed of high school wrestling in the state of Arizona since the 1950s. Many of our local wrestlers have gone on to wrestle in college, and a few have even gone to the Olympic trials. It would be a shame for our local youth to lose the opportunity to get to that pinnacle that Gable mentioned. I think that those of us with an interest in the sport need to go to www.themat.com and find out how to get involved and offer help to the cause.

Walt Johnson

Yuma