Tradition is what the Olympics are made of, and tradition is what wrestling is made of.

Many countries’ histories are steeped in the tradition of wrestling as old as the Olympics themselves. Wrestling was one of nine sports in the 1896 Athens games and has been a pillar of the modern Olympics since. Yet the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board ruled Feb. 12 that starting in 2020 wrestling will no longer be a part of the Olympic Games.

“Disbelief,” said Santa Rosa Junior College wrestling coach Jake Fitzpatrick. “It was just unconscionable that they would make a decision like that on the oldest sport known to mankind.”

Taekwondo, modern pentathlon and table tennis were also on the IOC chopping block, but beat out wrestling for Olympic survival.

“Wrestling is growing right now,” Fitzpatrick said. “In the United States, there have been 40,000 participants in the last 10 years. They’ve added 95 college wrestling programs in the last 10 years. Wrestling in the United States is healthy, and it’s growing. It’s the sixth most popular sport in the United States.”

Along with various styles of running, wrestling is considered one of the world’s oldest competitive sports. Cave drawings found in the Sumer region of Mesopotamia depicting wrestling date back to 7000 BCE.

The irony is that wrestling was a part of the original pentathlon introduced in 708 BCE in Ancient Greece. The modern pentathlon, in the Olympics since 1912, contains pistol shooting, fencing, show-jumping, a 3-kilometer cross country run and 200-meter freestyle swimming. In essence, it’s an event that consists of sports with none of the best athletes in their respective sports competing in it.

Have you ever met a modern pentathlete? Or gone to a modern pentathlon? Does any school offer modern pentathlon courses? Of course not. That is why the modern pentathlon should be cut and wrestling reinstated.

Or the IOC could replace the modern pentathlon with the ancient pentathlon, which consisted of the long jump, javelin, discus, stadion (foot race) and wrestling.

The IOC claims low ratings and poor attendance at the last Olympics are the reason to cut wrestling.

“The way they do it now it’s not so TV friendly,” Fitzpatrick said. “If you’ve been watching any Big 10 Network they’ve adapted their program to where they have a halftime. They wrestle the first five weight classes, they take a little 20-minute break, and they come back and wrestle the next five matches. And that works great for TV, because there’s built in time for commercials.”

But wrestling rarely showed on TV, and only with coverage lumped together with other low-ranking events. To watch wrestling, viewers had to find an online stream or catch it live on one of NBC’s off networks like NBC, Universal or Versus. With minimal coverage, of course the ratings are going to be poor.

“They broadcast it at 2 a.m., and they say they don’t get a good TV audience,” Fitzpatrick said. “Well guess what? If you put a few segments on primetime, maybe you would get an audience.”

According to IOC documents the Associated Press obtained, wrestling ranked “low,” scoring just below 5 on a scale of 10, in several of the technical criteria, including popularity with the public at the London Games. But England did not have a representative in wrestling at the 2012 London Games. As a matter of fact, not one country in the United Kingdom did.

However, wrestling still sold 113,851 tickets out of 116,854 available, slightly more than 97 percent at the 2012 Games. Surely it must be somewhat popular.

According to the IOC, wrestling ranked “low” in global TV audience with a maximum of 58.5 million viewers and an overall average of 23 million. To put that into perspective, in the U.S., The Grammy’s were the most watched program last week at 28.3 million, the most watched show was NCIS at 21.7 million.

The IOC also noted that the International Wrestling Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) has no athletes on its decision-making bodies, no women’s commission, no ethics rules for technical officials and no medical official on its executive board. FILA also has no official rankings for the wrestlers themselves.

In IOC documents the AP obtained, modern pentathlon also ranked “low” in general popularity in London, scoring 5.2 out of 10. The sport also ranked low in all TV categories, with maximum viewership of 33.5 million and an average of 12.5 million.

“Wrestling is healthy; it just doesn’t get the exposure from the media that a lot of other sports get,” Fitzpatrick said.

It is odd the IOC groups swimming, synchronized swimming, water polo and diving together under the discipline of Aquatics; track cycling, road cycling, mountain biking and BMX together under the Cycling discipline and track and field events as Athletics; but separate taekwondo, judo and karate, boxing and wrestling as five disciplines with five different governing bodies. Why not group them all together as combatives? Boom. That just freed up four spots on their charter.

“I think this decision is going to get overturned,” Fitzpatrick said. “They’ve already made some significant inroads into making progress there. First of all, they’ve riled up the wrestling community around the world.”

The bottom line is the actual bottom line in this decision. TV deals, advertisers and  corruption have plagued the Olympics, and this decision reeks of it.

Some IOC board members hold positions in sports administration, like Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., vice president of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM), member of the IOC board and the son of the former IOC president. However, wrestling and the U.S. Olympic Committee do not have members on the IOC executive board.

USA Wrestling has formed a group led by former world champion Bill Scherr to fight the IOC’s decision to cut wrestling from the 2020 Olympics.

USA Wrestling executive director Rich Bender told the AP Feb. 14 the group’s aim will be to lead efforts to restore wrestling to the Olympic program. World and Olympic champions Bruce Baumgartner, John Smith, Rulon Gardner and Dan Gable and two-time Olympians Kerry McCoy and Clarissa Chun will also take part.

Bender said he “intends to meet with wrestling leaders from Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Georgia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Belarus next week in Tehran,” site of the upcoming FILA World Cup tournament which began Feb. 21.

On Feb. 19, U.S. Congressman Dave Loebsack , D-Iowa, also joined by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., introduced a House resolution (H.Res. 71) formally opposing the decision of the IOC to cut wrestling from its core program.

“Sometimes a little wake-up is good for the community, whatever sport it happens to be, something like this is a unifying factor,” Fitzpatrick said.

There are some potential scenarios that could help wrestling get back into the Olympics.

IOC officials said it’s possible the executive board could decide in May to put three sports forward for consideration, including wrestling. Then it would be up to the IOC Assembly to approve wrestling or not. If the board decides to keep wrestling off the list, the assembly, which has resisted past attempts by the board to impose changes to the sports program, could reject the proposed list of 25 sports entirely. That would mean the current 26 sports, including wrestling, would stay on the program.

Other sports bidding for inclusion are baseball and softball (cut in 2005), karate, wushu, roller sports, wakeboarding, squash and sport climbing.

The IOC General Assembly will get the final vote in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina. General assembly members will decide the host country for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the sports program and the sport that will take the place of wrestling if the IOC ratifies the decision made by the IOC Executive Board at the General Assembly.