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The Olympic Games Cut 56 Wrestlers From Tokyo 2020

The Olympic Games Cut 56 Wrestlers From Tokyo 2020

 

 

Some bad news for the grappling community. The International Olympic Committee announced that due to the addition of five new sports and 15 new events some older programs – like wrestling will be suffering the consequences.

All these changes come as an effort to make the games “more youthful, urban and gender inclusive”.

The list of wrestling spots got reduced from 344 to 285 that will be equally divided among Greco-Roman, men’s freestyle and women’s freestyle with their 6 weight divisions equaling to 16 wrestlers per class.

The five new sports being added to the 2020 lineup are climbing, skateboarding, karate, surfing, and baseball and softball.

The full breakdown of the number of new events can be found in the table below.

SPORT NO. DESCRIPTION
Aquatics (Swimming) 3 800m (M) & 1500m (W) & 4x100m Medley Mixed Relay
Archery 1 Mixed Team Event
Athletics 1 4x400m Mixed Relay
Basketball 2 3×3 (M/W)
Boxing 0 Transfer of two men’s events to two women’s events
Canoe 0 Transfer of three men’s events to three women’s events
Cycling (BMX) 2 BMX Freestyle Park (M/W)
Cycling (Track) 2 Madison (M/W)
Fencing 2 Team Events (M/W)
Judo 1 Mixed Team Event
Rowing 0 Transfer of one men’s event to one women’s event
Sailing 0 Transfer of Mixed Multihull to Mixed Foiling Multihull
Shooting 0 Transfer of three men’s events to mixed events
Table Tennis 1 Mixed Doubles
Triathlon 1 Mixed Team Relay
Weightlifting -1 Reduction of one men’s weight category

The IOC also provided a chart of the number of athletes being added or cut from the existing sports, reproduced below.

SPORT NO. DESCRIPTION
Aquatics (Water Polo) -18 Reduction in Water Polo team size, addition of two women’s Water Polo teams
Aquatics (Swimming) -22 Reduction of 22 athletes
Athletics -105 Reduction of 105 athletes
Basketball 64 Inclusion of 3×3 with 8 teams for each gender, +64 athletes (32W/32M)
Boxing 0 Transfer of 44 athletes from men to women
Canoe 0 Transfer of 55 athletes to reach gender balance
Cycling (BMX Racing) 0 Transfer of 8 athletes to reach gender balance
Cycling (MTB) 0 Transfer of 8 athletes to reach gender balance in MTB, transfer of 4 male athletes to BMX Freestyle
Cycling (Road) 0 Transfer of 14 men to BMX Freestyle
Judo 0 Transfer of 38 athletes to reach gender balance
Rowing -24 Reduction of 24 athletes and reach gender balance
Sailing -30 Reduction of 30 athletes and reach gender balance
Shooting -30 Reduction of 30 athletes and reach gender balance
Weightlifting -64 Reduction of 64 athletes and reach gender balance
Wrestling -56 Reduction of 56 athletes across all disciplines and gender balance in Freestyle Wrestling

 

The slash doesn’t come as a big surprise because wrestling was dropped from the Olympic Games in 2013 only to be readmitted prior to Rio games after beating out squash, baseball and softball.

You can read the entire official announcement of the IOC here.