2/13- Nittany Nation- Sanderson, Wrestlers Ready to Fight IOC
By: Phil Schoener
Updated: February 13, 2013
"Wrestling is one of the sports the Olympics were started with," Olympic champion and Penn State wrestling head coach Cael Sanderson says with a face of disbelief.
Surprising is how Sanderson describes the International Olympic Committe's decision to cut the world's oldest sport from the Games.
Now he's ready for a fight.
"I don't really think I've accepted it yet," Sanderson says. "I think its more like we're in round one. We've still got two more rounds to go here."
Sanderson says he's been on the phone all day trying to make sure wrestling remains in the Olympics.
And he's encouraging fans to do the same.
"Now it's just a matter of really ambushing them - the IOC," Sanderson says. "You can't just attack them. You've got to really present a good cause."
Sanderson's not the only Olympic medalist in the Penn State wrestling room with strong feelings on the IOC's decision.
Puerto Rico's Jaime Espinal won silver in London and trains with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club.
He says the IOC's approach of cutting one event to make room for another hurts sport as a whole.
"When you talk about the Olympics you think about all the sports, every sport, and the best guys of every sport," Espinal says, noting that he wouldn't want wrestling back if it came at the expense other sports. "But it's not true."
Of course, the proposed cutoff year of 2020 would be exactly when current Nittany Lions would compete at their international prime.
Penn State senior Quentin Wright hopes something can be done to keep his generation's dreams alive.
"There's nothing like competing at the Olympics and that prestige," Wright says of the potential experience. "And not to have that opportunity for future generations including me - it's terrible."
Wright says, though, if there's any group of athletes ready for a fight to keep their sport, it's wrestlers.
Wrestling will have a chance to be re-added to the Olympic Games later this year. It is among eight sports fighting for one open spot on the roster of events for 2020.
