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.
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