Describing wrestling's omissionfrom the 2020 Summer Games as against the Olympic tradition,the Indian Sports Ministry on Wednesday asked India'srepresentative in the IOC Randhir Singh to urgently take upthe matter with the Executive Board and request the world bodyto reconsider its decision.
In a letter written to IOC-recognised IOA'ssecretary-general Randhir Singh, sports secretary PradeepKumar Deb said the Indian government feels that the decisionto exclude wrestling from the 25 core sports needs to berevisited.
"The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has urged theMember representing India in the IOC to take up the matter ofexcluding wrestling from the 25 core sports for the 2020Summer Olympic Games urgently with IOC Executive Board andother forums and impress IOC upon the need to reconsider itsdecision and retain wrestling in the category of core sportsin Olympic Games," the letter from the sports secretary said.
"Wrestling is a popular sport not only in India but alsoin many other countries such as United States, Russia, Iran,Uzbekistan, Mangolia, Japan, China, etc. The exclusion of thediscipline from the Olympics is against tradition which is somuch a part of Olympics. It will also deeply affect thesustenance of the game in the future," it added.
The ministry also highlighted the achievements of Indianwrestlers in the quadrennial event.
"Wrestling, which combines freestyle and greco-romanevents, goes back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athensin 1896 and has always been a core sport from the firstOlympics. This ancient sport has helped Indian grapplers makea mark and bring India on the global sporting map. India haswon four medals at the Olympic Games in wrestling."
The IOC Executive Board, in its recent meeting, leftwrestling out of the 25 core sports to be proposed forapproval for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in the 125th IOCSession to be held in September in Argentina.