Special Report: Wrestling’s Fight by Keir Radnedge
April 18, 2013
Wrestling boss Nenad Lalovic was sitting in his office in Belgrade when he took a phone call which delivered one of the biggest shocks of his career in sport.
“I was called by a friend of mine in Switzerland,” said Lalovic, “someone who is not even involved in wrestling. But he had heard on the radio – on the radio! – that wrestling was out of the Olympics. I was amazed.”
That was on February 12. An hour earlier, in Lausanne, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee decided to push wrestling to brink of exclusion of the Games in 2020.
Wrestling worldwide was as surprised as Lalovic. Within days FIBA, the international wrestling federation, had turned itself inside out. President Raphael Martinetti had quit after an effective vote of no confidence and Lalovic was appointed acting president with the most challenging of charges.
As he put it, while attending AIPS Congress in Sochi: “My job is simple: to keep wrestling in the Olympics; and that has defined my lfie for a month and a half now.”
Lalovic and his colleagues must persuade the executive board, in St Petersburg, that wrestling should be given a chance to save itself.
Then, if the current wrestling revolution makes a sufficient impression, Lalovic & Co will go to the IOC Session in Buenos Aires in September aiming to persuade the entire IOC that it should maintain one of the original sports from not only the ancient but also the inaugural modern Games in 1896.
Lalovic accepts that the sport had brought near-Olympic disaster upon itself. He said: “Our communications both internal and external was a disaster. Even inside the sport we had no information. We were just told everything was OK – but clearly it was not.
“Now we have to repair the damage. The rules had become too complicated. Freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling are very different sports and people didn’t understand that. We need to change the federation and the sport, to make it more understandable and more accessible.”
Proposals to achieve just that will go before an extraordinary congress in Moscow in May. Even now, said Lalovic, not everyone in the sport understood why it was essential to demonstrate so formally and publicly that change is under way.
He said: “We have a very tight deadline now because the other sports [competing for Olympic access in 2020] have been preparing themselves and campaigning now for two years. Some of them were even campaigning four years ago in Copenhagen.”
Lalovic promised: “We will take what the IOC said and we will become better. Rule changes were the first effort – to simplify the rules to reward the aggressive and more skilful athlete. We are looking at how the sport is presented, to television, to the fans.
“We have to define the difference between freestyle Greco Roman, explore new competitive clothing, consider the weight classes, the various disciplines including grappling.”
Campaign and reform steps include:
1, A draft set of new rules being prepared for Moscow;
2, Wrestling’s acceptance into the inaugural European Games in Baku in 2015 (“A spot we didn’t have a month ago.”);
3, May being designated as World Wrestling Month (the United States has invited Iran and Russia to dual matches in Grand Central Station in New York City; and the US and Iran will meet the next week in Los Angeles).; and
4, the hosting by the sport of a special meeting and luncheon at the United Nations.
Lalovic added: “Countries around the world have supported this cause – from Mongolia to Japan to Morocco to the far corners of the globe. They are putting the slogans on their singlets, their leaders are speaking to the IOC, the athletes and fans are uniting.
“We know that we have the fight of our lives. Our fiercest battle. This will be a tough and hard-fought match, But, we have been a valuable part of Olympic history for almost three thousand years. Our sport is strong and our fans are passionate.
“We are at a crossroads like never before in our history but we are fighters, competitors, and we will walk on that mat and compete.
“We have been given a second chance. As competitors, that is all we can ask. We’ve learned. We will be ready – and we will give it everything we’ve got.”
A sport which can unite nations such as Russia, Iran and the United States – to name but three – must have something special going for it.
Keir Radnedge has been covering football worldwide for more than 40 years, writing 33 books, from tournament guides to comprehensive encyclopedias, aimed at all ages.
His journalism career included The Daily Mail for 20 years as well as The Guardian and other national newspapers and magazines in the UK and around the world. He is a former editor, and remains a lead columnist, with World Soccer, generally recognised as the premier English language magazine on global football.
In addition to his writing, Keir has been a regular analyst for BBC radio and television, Sky Sports, Sky News, Aljazeera and CNN.
Keir Radnedge’s Twitter: @KeirRadnedge
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