The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) highlights changes made in its presentation to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) September 8 in Buenos Aires, for inclusion in the Summer Olympic Games.
The five member team making the presentation is the same team that made FILA’s successful presentation to the IOC Executive Board in May.
The team will highlight all of the “extraordinary” changes and initiatives FILA has completed this summer; remaking one of the world’s oldest sports. They include innovative rules to encourage competition, new distribution of weight classes to increase opportunities for women, and the formation of an athlete’s commission.
FILA President Nenad Lalovic said, “I am pleased to announce our team for the final presentation today and I am especially grateful that this team, that has already represented the sport of wrestling so well, will be able to make the trip to Buenos Aires for this historic moment. Our final presentation will highlight all of the great work the FILA Bureau and Olympic wrestling fans and supporters have done over the last seven months, as well as explain to the IOC why the version of wrestling they will witness in 2020 is new, exciting and modern.
Olympic Gold Medalist Carol Huynh, a member of the team from Canada who won a bronze medal in Women’s Freestyle (48 kg) at the London 2012 Games and a gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Games added, “the progress FILA has made over the last few months is truly inspiring. I am very proud to be a wrestler under the FILA banner and I am especially proud that this federation had the courage to redistribute weight classes between men and women, so that women now have additional opportunities to participate in the Olympic Movement”.
