Saving Wrestling: The Inside Story of the Sport s Epic Fight to Stay in the Olympics

Wrestling fans, coaches, and competitors were stunned in February 2013 when the International Olympic Committee recommended that the sport be dropped from the Olympics after the 2016 Games. But just months later, the IOC General Assembly voted wrestling back into the Games for 2020 and 2024 in a first-round victory. This is the inside story of how one of the original Olympic sports came back from a virtual death sentence. Expertly uncovering the struggles within wrestling’s international federation, FILA, and the idiosyncrasies at the top of the Olympic movement, this investigation uncovers how the original and illogical IOC vote to eliminate wrestling transpired and how FILA, USA Wrestling, and Russia engineered the plan to remove ineffectual FILA president Raphaël Martinetti from office and keep him out. It also answers questions such as: Who were the leaders of the movement that transformed the sport into "new wrestling"? Why were the Kremlin, the president of Iran, the United Nations, and Buckingham Palace involved in the sport's quest for redemption? and How did controversial changes in both men and women's Olympic weight classes and the "new rules" become adopted? The book is a must for wrestling fans as well as those who like to see what goes on behind the scenes at the Olympics.