Wrestling dropped from Olympic games.
Rulon Gardner was the Gold Medalist in the heavyweight division of Greco-Roman Wrestling at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Gardner defeated Alexander Karelin, the greatest all-time athlete in the sport, to deny him the only gold medal he would fail to win in international competition.
It’s the best Olympic wrestling moment of my lifetime, and just like most things, the International Olympic Committee seems to have found a way to mess up a good thing.
On Tuesday, Feb. 12, it was announced the IOC plans to drop all wrestling events, freestyle and the aforementioned Greco-Roman styles, from the 2020 Summer Olympic games.
Wrestling is an original Olympic sport that was conducted in Athens in 1896. The United States has won 38 percent of the medals all-time in the sport, but the majority came in the early era of the sport. Starting with just five men representing four nations in 1896, the sport has grown where at the 2012 London Olympics, 71 nations were represented with 29 of them winning a medal. The exclusion of wrestling must be more than an American outrage, but a worldwide gathering.
In the Feb. 8 issue of Flyer News, I wrote about the ridiculousness that the summer games are becoming the events being chosen to stay and go. Little did I know, at the time of writing about it, that only a week would pass before the IOC would continue to prove its stupidity.
We won’t know where the games that year will be held until Sept. 7 when the IOC officially elects its location. The final three are down to Istanbul, Turkey; Madrid, Spain or Tokyo, Japan.
No matter where it’s held, a huge mistake has been made that needs to be corrected by voting it back on the schedule in May during the final eight spot vote for one spot.
Big Ten Conference schools vow to stop scheduling Football Championship Subdivision opponents
On Aug. 30, 2014, you can bet the University of Michigan football programs plans to get revenge on Appalachian State University for its monumental upset in 2007.
Thankfully, it should be among the last time we see these type of games played.
ESPN.com reported on Tuesday, Feb. 12, that University of Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez told a local radio station that its member schools have decided to stop scheduling opponents below the Football Bowl Subdivision level in its non-conference games.
I applaud this move in so many ways.
Schools that are in one of the six Bowl Championship Series automatic bid conference have been scheduling these games for far too long after the NCAA allowed schools to add a 12th game to their schedules and counting a win over FCS toward the six wins needed to become a bowl eligible.
In fact, in the first week of the 2012 college football season, 77 games were contested involving a school at the FBS level. Among those games, 38, or barely under half, were against a school in the FCS level. That is awful for what should be a celebrated opening week of the return of football.
It doesn’t end there though, as by the fourth full week of the season in 2012, 35 percent of all games played involving an FBS school were still against an FCS level opponent.
Next year is not any better of a start, as 25 of these games have already been scheduled for next year’s opening week of games.
You cannot completely say that these games should not be played because of how overmatched FCS schools should be, because of games like ASU and Michigan, as well as James Madison University defeating Virginia Tech University in 2010.
But those type of upsets are as rare as these schools getting multi-million dollar contracts to come lose, which is essentially what FBS schools are asking them to do.
Alvarez in the interview was quoted as having said the Big Ten’s nonconference schedules are unappealing with the way they look from FCS schools comprising them. I could not agree more, and hope that this move will be the first step in ridding games like this from being scheduled at all across college football.
