One of the first sports to ever be competed in on the biggest stage the Olympics, will no longer be classified as an Olympic sport.
The announcement comes after the International Olympic Committee said the sport was the least popular of the 25 Olympic sports competed on in the summer games.
Now the question is, how does the impact local teams, and schools have built quite the name from the sport?
Wrestling is the world's oldest competitive sport. It’s been around since as far back as 3,000 B.C.
The announcement today says the sport will no longer be an Olympic event, and that's causing quite the uproar right here in central Wisconsin.
Dennis Hall of Plover has been wrestling since he was 5 years old. He has even represented the United States in three different Olympic Games in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Dennis says he first heard the news that his lifelong sport and love will no longer be an Olympic event early Tuesday morning. It is news he says came as quite a shock.
“To see it being dropped from the Olympic Games is devastating. There are a lot of little kids out there. There is no professional sport for wrestling, so the pinnacle of the career is the Olympic Games. Wrestling has made me into the person I am and helped build me into who I have become."
Dennis says the sport of wrestling has taken him to 27 different countries, some of which he's been to more than once. He says the hardest thing about the news is that it's not going to allow children to do what he has done.
The decision to drop wrestling was made by secret ballot by the Olympic Committee's 15 member board. The exact vote and the reasons for the decision were not given in detail.
Wrestling will still be an event in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
