Olympic failure: No wrestling in 2020.

Okay, you guys read the headline...there will be no wrestling competition in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, wherever they will be played.

Not a big deal, you say?  Well, I would agree with you except for one thing.

The Olympic Games are inspired by those conducted in Greece before the birth of Christ and aside from the athletic events (running, jumping and throwing things), wrestling was basically the OTHER event.  So over 2000 years of tradition was swept away by the stroke of a pen on a ballot.  Of all the sports that don't get shown on TV, they decide to cut one that basically gave birth to the Olympics back when it was a religious rite honoring the ancient Greek gods.

So needless to say, I don't get it.  How can you keep a sport that is usually played with a beer in your hand at a picnic (badminton), or one made famous by Forrest Gump (table tennis) and cut wrestling?  I can't accept the fact that it doesn't bring in TV viewers and ad money, because in the many hours I watched during the London games last year, I don't recall seeing badminton or table tennis...with the exception of the coverage of the Asian table tennis teams trying to intentionally throwing games to get better seeds in the medal round...in prime time.

I can understand wanting to keep the Olympics fresh and up with the times.  The problem with that is that if you look at last years competition that was shown on television, there were only three or four sports: Swimming, Gymnastics and Track/Athletics.  Every once in a while NBC would toss you two-and-a-half minutes on say, Rowing or Field Hockey or Judo.  Sure, they have no compelling figures like Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt or the U.S. Women's Gymnastic team, but the sports are important to the competitors just as much.

You would think that with the popularity of The Hunger Games last year in the movies there would be coverage of Archery, for example.  I'm told there was indeed coverage of the Archery events but they were either on another channel, (there were like 15 channels of coverage across the cable "multiverse", so NBC can be held blameless there.  Still, we have parents watching their kids compete on the Archery range that would love to see their sons and daughters shoot for the Gold during prime time.

As always, I digress.

Clearly, this is a dine deal.  It's sad, but what can you do?  You can't stop progress, but you could respect tradition.