Tradition means something after all with the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC has announced that wrestling — the oldest Olympic sport of them all — will be competed at the 2020 and 2024 summer games. The IOC announced this week that Tokyo would be the host city for the 2020 Olympics; the IOC will announce the 2024 host city in 2017.

http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/story/wrestling-wins-ioc-vote-for-place-in-2020-summer-olympics-090813?ocid=ansfox11

The IOC had talked for some months about getting rid of wrestling, which would have constituted one of the dumbest, most heartless and ridiculous decisions the Olympic governing body had ever rendered. IOC authorities said the public had lost interest in wrestling. It planned, though, to keep synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics.

Get rid of wrestling? You must have been kidding!

The Olympics began in 776 B.C. in ancient Olympia, Greece. Wrestling is believed to be the first sport ever conducted at those ancient Games.

The athletes, I hasten to add, competed in the nude.

I suppose if the IOC wanted to gin up interest in wrestling in the 21st century, it could allow wrestlers to shed their tights and compete as their grappling forebears did back in the old days.

“It’s almost like you expected that to happen,” former American Olympic gold medalist and coach Dan Gable told The Associated Press. “But we certainly didn’t expect what happened in February to happen, and because of that you learn and work through the whole process.” What happened in February was that the IOC announced the end of wrestling as an Olympic sport.

Thanks goodness that tradition still speaks loudly when it counts.