Since the vote in Lausanne, I’ve been asked many times: “How can anyone know what 15 members who vote by secret ballot really think?”

Just two of the board’s members come from countries where wrestling is an actively promoted sport. Yet 180 countries wrestle, and only 53 engage in the modern pentathlon. Wrestlers from 71 countries went to London last summer; before they could compete, they had to win some of the toughest qualifying tournaments in the world.

And while the United States has won the most Olympic medals in wrestling, Russia currently dominates the sport, and there have been many medal winners from Cuba, Finland, Iran, Turkey and South Korea — and, more recently, since the fall of the Soviet Union, from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan.

If the executive board’s vote is upheld, will the elimination of wrestling as an Olympic sport hurt wrestling at high school and collegiate programs in the United States? Certainly. High school participation has expanded by 40,000 wrestlers in the last decade; more than 270,000 high school students wrestle, including more than 8,200 women. There are 21 intercollegiate women’s wrestling teams and, since 1999, 95 new college wrestling programs.

But if American wrestling is strong, in recent years international wrestling has done significant damage to itself. Just look at the stupid rules for overtime: the defeatist ball draw (in which, roughly, a wrestler draws a colored ball to determine his or her position) and the unfair “clinch” (as it’s called); these are such bad rules that people who don’t know wrestling can’t understand them, even when I explain them.

Knowledgeable American fans dislike the sport’s international rules. I was in Iowa City in 2012 for the United States Olympic trials; when a match came down to overtime, there was a groan from the 14,000 faithful in Carver-Hawkeye arena. These fans are among the most savvy and appreciative in American wrestling; yet what I heard was their skepticism, truly their disgust, each time there was a ball draw or the clinch.

These rules are certifiable crowd-killers, while the TV coverage of other combat sports — boxing, taekwondo and judo — is increasingly as popular as (or more popular than) wrestling. Olympic boxing is far from being the world’s best boxing; Olympic wrestlers are the world’s best. I like taekwondo; I like judo. But wrestling shouldn’t be losing the TV audience to them.