TargetTalk

Wow .... I would have never thought this sport would go...

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/02/1 ... latestnews

Well, it's not decided yet, so there's still a chance.
I'm not very surprised though considering the problem greco-roman style have had with rules and judging.

Theres a lot more deserving sports to be removed from the Olympics IMHO. Wrestling was one of the original sports and one I think should stay.

I see they are thinking about addung sport climbing amongst others ?

Rob.

That's what some like to say about our sport too, it's one of the originals, they'll never drop it. Maybe this will wake them up.

Yes. And no. Certainly we shouldn't be complacant just because of our heritage, but if we're honest it is a very small sport as they go. I just had a quick look on the British Wrestling site and there's less than 40 clubs showing on their club finder, 17 of them clustered in just two cities. And actual wrestling is after all a very different spectacle to the commerically popular WWE, which of course is a choreographed show, not a sport!

Compare that to shooting, which even in the UK has thousands of clubs (even if those covering ISSF shooting amount to low hundreds - still an order of magnitude higher than wrestling - not bad for a country where guns will jump of a table and defile you because they're inherently evil (or so we're told by the media!).

Wrestling was sought out by the 1896 organisers in no small part because the organisers were looking for links to the old games and Greco-Roman wrestling was thought to be almost exactly the same as it would have been back in the Ancient Greek Olympiads. That historic link was a key factor as much as participation levels. Nowadays the key to the Olymic's continuation is sponsorship, and unfortunately that means populism and crowd pleasers.

If participation is down and there are other, much larger sports, which people have an interest in seeing, then they should be considered for inclusion, and a finite budget means sometimes you need to exchange events rather than simply adding them.

I should quite like to see sport climbing - it's a fantastic mix of mental problem solving and route planning as well as both physical strength and agility. Good climbing is poetry in motion - it's applied gymnastics in a useful scenario! That said, climbing would be better taking the place of rhythmic gymnastics or synchronised swimming. I agree with Rob that Wrestling is a lot more deserving than quite a number of other sports. Equally though it is also an exceptionally small sport as they go. Maybe the UK is an anomaly but it seems to be an order of magnitude smaller than most sports who should be able to muster at least 100 clubs nationally, if not 1000.


An awful shame for the wrestlers and the coaches who have worked so hard, although at least there's some notice - those in the system will still have 2016 to prove themselves (and 4 years to make plans). It's not as though that's it, all done, being shut down with immediate effect. Nevertheless, a bitter pill to swallow. I presume those in Commonwealth countries will still be able to contest it at the Commonwealth Games (unless the CGF takes the opportunity to bump it as well), so that is some small consolation, although presumably it won't be enough to keep their UKSport funding.

Take the pentathlon, please. Leave all the shooting sports.

Joel

I never thought that such a traditional sport will be even nominated for removing..
I'm really scared if they also will ban the static shooting disciplines somewhen because -being honest- watching AP as a normal viewer is nearly as exciting as watching somebody angling..

One good thing I'm seeing in this would be that Wakeboarding is on the alternates for Wrestling - that would be really cool.

Neon21 wrote:I never thought that such a traditional sport will be even nominated for removing..
I'm really scared if they also will ban the static shooting disciplines somewhen because -being honest- watching AP as a normal viewer is nearly as exciting as watching somebody angling..

One good thing I'm seeing in this would be that Wakeboarding is on the alternates for Wrestling - that would be really cool.

If only the 'normal viewer' had an opportunity to watch Olympic Air Pistol.

Here in AUS, our broadcaster for London Olympics showed a group of cyclists warming up while the first medal of the Games was being decised.

Now maybe all those controversial rule changes that the ISSF made now makes sense to us. Maybe those men in charge have already seen it coming, so they preempt being potentially dropped by changing the rules to demonstrate to the IOC that shooting is still relevant.
Ours are still an original sport, but it was pushed through by Pierre de Coubertin, and has no relations to the ancient Olympics. We have years which the entire program was dropped. So we do have to be on guards and alert at all times, otherwise we may ended up like what happened to wrestling.
As for Pentathlon I do not think it is a partial shooting sport anymore. Using laser is like playing video game. Even using air pistol you still have a little but of recoil to deal with.

Neon21 wrote: I'm really scared if they also will ban the static shooting disciplines somewhen because -being honest- watching AP as a normal viewer is nearly as exciting as watching somebody angling..

Which is why the ISSF modified AP rules for finals so significantly; adding suspense for TV viewers so there's something to 'get' in a sport which is kind of internal in nature rather than populist/extrovert like wakeboarding (really? Seems about as exciting to watch wakeboarding as watching golf. Can't stand either.) With the new 'sudden death' sort of finals structure audiences will at least be able to see people eliminated every couple of shots. Sort of like keirin racing in track cycling where the 'devil' takes the hindmost. I'm reserving judgment on this change until seeing a couple of World Cup matches but am leaning slightly towards liking it, simply because it's more shots for the winning few, meaning a more thorough test of their consistency and durability than the 10 shot final.

Interesting take on the situation here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danbigman/2 ... 020-games/

From that opinion piece:

Memo to the IOC: No matter what you think, you’re not marketing the NBA, guys. You’re selling the not-NBA (or the illusion of that, at least). The marketability of the Olympics is the whole — the whole exotic, rare, authentic athletic experience where we viewers from all over the world come together to watch nobodies become somebodies for two weeks every two years. And while we are smiling at our TVs, you show us the polar bears and we buy the Cokes. Duh.

By losing wrestling, they’ll lose some of that halo. And in a age of 24-7 SportsCenter, of PEDs and millionaire athlete perks, that halo is a powerful product differentiator for fans and advertisers–the only one the Rings really have anymore.

It ain't about sport any more it's about money. Sounds like Coke didn't like their ads being sandwiched in between two large sweaty guys wearing very little and fumbling with each other for twenty minutes - no matter what the heritage said.

The day something 'better' or let's say more commercial comes along I have no doubt shooting will be off the list too. Especially now that it is becoming more politically incorrect to be associated with it in the US (for all the wrong reasons) - the source of most of that money.

Archery bit the dust this year and believe me the sport will not dwindle without its inclusion.

Given the absolutely appalling coverage of the shooting at the London Games when they were held in our own country I doubt that inclusion or exclusion would matter much here in the UK where political correctness rules most decisions these days.

Cobbslane wrote:Archery bit the dust this year .....

What do you mean by that?

Sorry I should have made it clear that I was refering to the UK Sport decision to reduce funding by 25% pre-Rio due to poor past performance.
That will surely create a downward spiral of performance over time. As I said it is about money. Talent is secondary.

Cobbslane wrote:Sorry I should have made it clear that I was refering to the UK Sport decision to reduce funding by 25% pre-Rio due to poor past performance.

It was the "....and believe me the sport will not dwindle without its inclusion" that really confused me, and still does.

Cobbslane wrote:Sorry I should have made it clear that I was refering to the UK Sport decision to reduce funding by 25% pre-Rio due to poor past performance.
That will surely create a downward spiral of performance over time. As I said it is about money. Talent is secondary.

That's hardly equivalent to 'biting the dust'. All sports must perform or money will be re-directed as you illustrated. It's up to the elite directors to 'get more with less' if they want to move up the ladder again. Money doesn't guarantee performance, as equally lack of money doesn't reduce it.

Rob.

This all goes back to the Devil's Bargain Samaranch cut with NBC Sports giving them a long-term contract. In the USA, we have a saying, "If you owe the bank a little money, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a lot of money, you own the bank."

NBC effectively owns the IOC. And NBC Sports is the least capable of covering the Olympic Games of all the major American networks.

Now, shooting has one Great Big Advantage - it's a truly global sport. Most sports are dominated by athletes from a handful of nations - and we all know which ones well in advance. Shooting has medalists from all over the world. Thank you Abinav Bindra!

The finals format? I can take or leave it...though I'd like to see it tweaked. I think the real key is to have good color commentary - which NBC Sports will NOT provide.

In the US, archery was one of the most viewed sports in the London olympics according to NBC. NBC was wondering why. They speculated the interest in archery resulted because the movie the Hunger Games created an interest in archery.

The IOC might purposely used wrestling to create controversy in order to protect it. There might be some political issues with dropping pentathlon, so they went with wrestling just to show how much support is out there.

WRL wrote:In the US, archery was one of the most viewed sports in the London olympics according to NBC. NBC was wondering why. They speculated the interest in archery resulted because the movie the Hunger Games created an interest in archery.

Archery felt threatened and did a total redesign of their competition rounds to make it more spectator friendly and exciting. In addition they take full advantage of slowmo video effects of flying arrows and have all kinds of ties to national traditions all over the world. USA, Japan, Korea and several other nations have an equipment industry, and Hoyt/Easton has played a central role as sponsors as well as thru IOC participation.

http://www.teamusa.org/About-the-USOC/O ... aston.aspx

This is a very good example of what can be done to secure future participation.