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The International Olympic Committee is dropping wrestling from competition after the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, the result of some elaborate secret ballot it holds every so often to determine its 25 "core sports."

In part because golf and rugby are coming to the Olympics, something had to go. This time it was wrestling, apparently edged out by the modern pentathlon for survival.

As such, both freestyle (somewhat similar to what you see in American high schools and colleges) and Greco Roman, each of which dated back to the 1896 Games in Greece, will soon be history. Wrestling can try to get back in, but the odds are long.

This is a poor decision and it would be only slightly less poor of a decision if it was modern pentathlon (a five-event competition of fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting) that got the boot instead.

It's golf that should never have been granted access in the first place.

[Related: Wrestling's governing body scrambles after being booted from Olympics]

Forget arguing the various strengths and weaknesses of each sport. That's often a cultural opinion. This is a global event and tastes vary. In the United States, badminton is considered a joke, something played at backyard barbeques, even occasionally while sober. In the overcrowded cities of third-world countries, however, it's a way to play tennis – basically street tennis for the non-wealthy. They don't have a lot of All-Lawn Tennis Clubs in Malaysia. Millions take badminton seriously and consider watching it at the highest level a sight to behold.

And that's part of why badminton is a fine Olympic sport.

Badminton also plays to another Olympic strength – winning the gold medal is a huge deal to those athletes, the pinnacle for most. So is winning a gold medal in modern pentathlon. Same for wrestling.

That's not at all the case for golf, where a gold medal isn't a green jacket.

The Olympics are special when they offer the ultimate global competition for a group of athletes, where everyone builds to this singular moment. It doesn't matter if it's a millionaire such as Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt, or a teenage gymnast with a dream, or a poor courageous middle distance runner out of Central Africa, the Olympics are an accomplishment that brings joy and tears and importance and everything.

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