Sports Minister writes to IOC seeking review on wrestling

Sports Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday wrote to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), urging the world body's Executive Board to reconsider its decision to remove wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games roster.

In the letter, which has been addressed to IOC president Jacques Rogge, the minister said the decision to exclude wrestling from the 25 core sports needs to be revisited.

The letter highlighted the achievements of Indian grapplers in the quadrennial event and described wrestling as a popular sport not only in India but also in many other countries.

"The sports minister today wrote a letter to the IOC president Jacques Rogge and urged him to look into the matter and find out ways through which sports can win back its place in the 2020 Olympics," sports secretary Pradeep Kumar Deb said.

Last week also, the sports secretary had written a letter to India's representative in the IOC Randhir Singh and asked him to urgently take up the matter with the Executive Board and request the world body to reconsider its decision.

Wrestling, which combines freestyle and greco-roman events, has always been a core sport from the first Olympics. India has won four medals at the Olympic Games in wrestling.

The IOC Executive Board, in a meeting, left wrestling out of the 25 core sports to be proposed for approval for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in the 125th IOC Session to be held in September in Argentina.