Moscow: Wrestling has introduced drastic changes designed to keep the ancient sport in the Olympic programme, the newly-elected president of the world governing body (FILA) said on Saturday. More categories for women, eliminating draws and cutting down the number of competitors are just some of the initiatives being introduced as wrestling battles to salvage its Olympic status after the International Olympic Committee (IOC)'s executive board made a surprise recommendation to drop it from the 2020 Games programme.
"Today we made decisions needed for our struggle to remain in the Olympic movement," Serbian Nenad Lalovic told a news conference shortly after winning overwhelming majority votes to lead the sport at FILA's extraordinary congress in Moscow. The sport, which featured in the first modern Olympics in 1896 and every Games since apart from 1900, has joined seven other candidates battling for one spot in a revamped programme.
Wrestlers were told to bring changes to their sport, adapt to a new environment and make it more suitable for television audience if they wanted to remain in the Olympics. "They (IOC) gave us a yellow card, so we had to change. And we did," Lalovic said. "The new rules had been adapted. Also we gave more equality to women in our sport. The most important thing is the changes in our constitution and the new rules."
Wrestling, which had 18 medals - seven in both freestyle and Greco-Roman and four for women - contested at last year's London Olympics, has now
12:07 AM, May 19, 2013
New Delhi: India's Sports Minister Jitender Singh on Thursday said that the roadmap for India's return to the Olympic fold has been chalked out by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and it will take 30 to 60 days to complete the entire process. The Sports Minister, who met the IOC officials in Lausanne on Wednesday, said, "The roadmap has been decided by IOC to bring India back into the Olympic...
08:28 AM, May 16, 2013
Lausanne: It's status quo for the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday refused to lift its suspension until free and fair elections are held. The IOC Wednesday held a meeting with the Indian delegation headed by the Minister of State for Sports Jitendra Singh and representatives from the National Sports Federations (NSF), who are also members of the suspended IOA. A representative of the...
01:03 AM, May 16, 2013
New Delhi: Sports Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday asked the IOC to "assist" in bringing India back into the Olympic fold and said that the country is at "crossroads" as far as sports administration was concerned. "We are at the crossroads of change in the way India Sports is administered in India. We come to you with a common understanding. We hope the IOC will also assist us in bringing...
06:56 PM, May 15, 2013
New Delhi: Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra, part of the sports ministry delegation to Lausanne, Wednesday said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was worried about the governance of Indian sports. Bindra has gone to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne with the ministry officials for getting India back into the Olympic fold. The IOC suspended the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) last December for violating the Olympic charter in its election process. "IOC...
06:18 PM, May 15, 2013
New Delhi: Top IOA delegates were busy giving finishing touches to their action plan as they geared up for the crucial meeting with the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne to draw a roadmap for India's return to the Olympic fold. Most of the IOA delegates will leave for Lausanne tonight for the May 15 meeting which is expected to start the process of getting the ban on India lifted. Though...
05:16 PM, May 13, 2013
New Delhi: With four days to go for the crucial meeting between Indian officials and the International Olympic Committee, efforts to persuade acting IOA President VK Malhotra and IOC member in India Randhir Singh to reconsider their decision to pull out have not borne fruit with both insisting on staying away. Malhotra and Randhir had decided to boycott the meeting came a day after the IOC agreed to include Hockey...
05:48 PM, May 11, 2013
New Delhi: The crucial Lausanne meeting between the Indian officials and the International Olympic Committee to find a way for the country's return to the Olympic fold will proceed as per schedule on May 15 despite the dramatic pull-out of IOA acting president V K Malhotra and IOC member Randhir Singh. The IOC has sent a message to the Swiss Embassy here to expedite the visa formalities of all the...
06:14 PM, May 10, 2013
New Delhi: In a dramatic development, the Indian Olympic Association's acting president V K Malhotra and IOC member in India Randhir Singh on Thursday pulled out of the crucial meeting with the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne next week, apparently miffed with the world body's changed stance. Barely six days before the May 15 meeting to find a way for India's return to the Olympic fold, the pull-out of these...
04:50 PM, May 09, 2013
New Delhi: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) delegation for the crucial meeting with International Olympic Council (IOC) on bringing India back into the Olympic movement, will now include Hockey India general secretary Narinder Batra and Jharkhand Olympic Association president R K Anand. The meeting that is scheduled to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland on May 15 will feature six delegates from the IOA. Apart from Batra and Anand,the other members...
10:54 PM, May 08, 2013
New Delhi: Falling in line with the government's Sports Code, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has amended its constitution by fixing the term and the age limit of its office bearers. The sports ministry has asked the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the National Sports Federations (NSFs) to be on the same page by adopting the Sports Code ahead of next month's meeting with the International Olympic Committee (IOC)....
12:36 PM, Apr 28, 2013
New Delhi: The Congress core group met a short while back to discuss the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) affidavit on coal block allocation scam report with its allies and backed Law Minister Ashwani Kumar. Kumar told the core group his job was to look at the legal points in the draft and that he had done nothing wrong. Allies said the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be the next...
02:25 PM, Apr 26, 2013
New Delhi: A Parliamentary standing committee on coal and steel, which will submit its report on Tuesday, contains a few explosive conclusions. There could be trouble both for the UPA and NDA as the report says all the coal blocks distributed between 1993 and 2008 were unauthorised and not done in a transparent manner. Meanwhile, the report observes that no bidding process was held for coal allocations. Though it is...
08:16 AM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: Sports Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday said that the stand-off between the government and the IOA over the contentious Sports Code was nearing resolution, a development which could pave the way for India putting up a united front in the joint meeting with the IOC next month. Talking to reporters after a meeting with IOC member in India, Randhir Singh, Jitendra said he was confident of India returning...
06:14 PM, Apr 17, 2013
New Delhi: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has again invited representatives of the suspended IOA and Sports Ministry for a meeting in Lausanne on May 7 in yet another attempt to find a way for India's return to the Olympic movement even as the stand-off between the government and sport body persisted. After the joint meeting, which was earlier scheduled to be held in Lausanne on April 15 and 16,...
02:09 PM, Apr 13, 2013
New Delhi: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is believed to have called a meeting with the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) headed by Vijay Kumar Malhotra next month in Lausanne. Malhotra told IANS that he hasn't "seen the letter" from the IOC but believes that the meeting could be held next month. Malhotra, however, said that IOA officials would "first like to meet union sports minister Jitendra Singh and discuss some...
02:02 AM, Apr 13, 2013
New Delhi: Sports Minister Jitendra Singh expressed disappointment over the Indian Olympic Association holding the Sports bill responsible for the country's suspension from the Olympic movement, terming it as "very, very unfortunate". "I am deeply shocked and upset after reading the contents of the letter. It is delayed tactics. As far as the Sports bill is concerned, priority of the government is to get the bill passed by both the...
10:12 PM, Apr 10, 2013
IOA president V K Malhotra said that he will write to the Sports Ministry and IOC to give the IOA more time to have a meaningful discussion over the differences. ...
01:58 PM, Apr 03, 2013
Kuzenkova, 2004 Olympic champion in the women's hammer, tested positive at the 2005 world championships in Helsinki, where she also finished first. ...
10:01 PM, Apr 02, 2013
The price of non-subsidised cooking gas (LPG) was on Monday reduced by Rs 3 per cylinder in line with fall in international rates. A 14.2-kg LPG cylinder that consumers will have to buy after they exhaust their enhanced quota of 9 subsidised bottles in a year, will cost Rs 901.50 from Monday, according to Indian Oil Corp (IOC). ...
04:39 PM, Apr 01, 2013
