Wrestling to Feature at the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted over the weekend to reinstate wrestling as an Olympic field following a decision in February to drop it from a list of core sports in the 2020 summer games.
Wrestling defeated baseball/softball and squash to win the last available spot, although wrestling would have been featured at the 2016 games in Rio in any case.
Wrestling received 49 votes out of 95, with baseball/softball gathering 24 and squash 22 votes.
The question has a great impact on Estonia, which has since 1920 picked up eleven medals in wrestling, including a silver medal won by Heiki Nabi, 28, at the 2012 London Olympics. A number of Estonian wrestlers competing as part of Soviet delegations between 1948 and 1988 also won medals.
The IOC also selected Tokyo to be the host of the 2020 summer games. The event was last held in the Japanese capital in 1964, where Estonians won two medals; Rein Aun came second in the decathlon event and Jaak Lipso was part of the Soviet basketball team that won silver.