In February， 2013， the IOC voted to drop wrestling from its schedule for the 2020 Games. There is a slim chance that wrestling may win a reprieve when the IOC meets in September to ratify its choice.

Wrestling has roots in the ancient Greece games and has been a part of every modern Olympics since 1896. But nowadays， it lacks global popularity.

Its the IOC trying to change the Olympics to make it more mainstream and more viewer-friendly.

—said Rulon Gardner， famous American wrestler who won the gold medal in the 2000 Olympic Games.

We will use all of our strength to persuade the IOC not to exclude wrestling from the Olympic program.

—said Russian Olympic Committee president. The decision hit hard in Russia， long a power in the sport， in which Soviet and Russian wrestlers have won 77 gold medals.

IOC 國(guó)際奧林匹克委員會(huì)的簡(jiǎn)稱

wrestling 摔跤

slim 微小的

reprieve 暫緩令

ratify正式批準(zhǔn)

have roots in 起源于

popularity流行

mainstream主流

exclude開(kāi)除

Soviet 蘇聯(lián)