Thanks for clarifying the definition of "wushu."
If you google image "wushu" you get the flashy stuff, but I guess that's just what's popular here because it's fun to watch.
Yeah, sanda in the Olympics would be cool.
Thanks for clarifying the definition of "wushu."
If you google image "wushu" you get the flashy stuff, but I guess that's just what's popular here because it's fun to watch.
Yeah, sanda in the Olympics would be cool.
"If you like metal you're my friend" -- Manowar
"I am the cosmic storms, I am the tiny worms" -- Dimmu Borgir
<BombScare> i beat the internet
<BombScare> the end guy is hard.
Wushu fighting uphill battle
Updated: 2012-12-14 04:08
By Sun Xiaochen ( China Daily)
Chinese martial art faces strong competition to kick off in the Games
Don't start planning those Olympic wushu-watching parties just yet.
The sport is a long way from becoming an official event at the Games, said the head of the umbrella organization for Olympic and non-Olympic sports federations.
"That's a difficult question. They are very far (from getting in the Olympics) now," SportAccord president Hein Verbruggen said on Thursday on the sidelines of the World Mind Games in Beijing.
Despite its growing international popularity, the combat sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts faces stiff competition in the reserve pool.
SportAccord represents 92 sports federations, providing a huge well for the International Olympic Committee to draw from.
"The IOC basically has its own recognition system, but they base themselves to a large extent upon us. If we recognize a federation, it will be a major step to getting recognized by the IOC. It's getting much closer," said Verbruggen, a former IOC member and the chairman of the coordination commission for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Recognized by the IOC in 2002, the International Wushu Federation has been promoting the sport internationally by hosting events like the 2010 World Combat Games.
It was left in the cold for the 2016 Games, with golf and rugby sevens earning inclusion instead.
The window will open again in September at the IOC session in Argentina, where members will meet to elect the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics and consider adding new sports.
Wushu fighting uphill battle
Even then, Verbruggen said wushu would face long odds.
"The first group is in the Olympics," he said. "The second is recognized (by the IOC) but not in the Games. And wushu is one of them, among another 32 or 33 sports who all want to get in there. The IOC will make a decision on whether they are going to add a new sport or not. I know wushu is one of the candidates. But it's very difficult."
Climbing, baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, squash and wakeboarding are also leading candidates for 2020.
Squash is the likely front-runner because it is widely played and has been in the Commonwealth Games since 1996.
Africa is definitely a factor here, as wushu is surprisingly popular by many accounts there, but I'm not sure that it'll be that much of a factor. Then again, who knows what the world will look like in 2020?Wushu's push for Games spot
From: The Australian
December 29, 2012 12:00AM
THE pure commercial potential of wushu puts the Chinese martial arts in serious contention for 2020 Olympic Games inclusion, according to the sole Australian on the sport's bid committee.
Wushu is one of eight sports hoping for inclusion in the Olympic program alongside squash, karate, roller sport, climbing, wakeboarding and the joint bid from baseball and softball.
Despite being the national sport of China's 1.34 billion people and having roots more than 4000 years old, wushu is a mystery to most Australians.
But partly due to terminology.
Wushu was originally known popularly by the Cantonese term kung fu, which was made famous by Bruce Lee in a series of Hollywood films -- including The Way of the Dragon -- in the early 1970s.
In Mandarin, the term wushu literally translates as "wu" meaning military and "shu" meaning art.
Wushu has since been distinguished as an aesthetic performance and competitive sport -- which resembles rhythmic gymnastics -- while kung fu remains the traditional fighting practice.
Routines are performed solo, paired or in groups, either bare-handed or armed with traditional Chinese weaponry.
Male and female competitors are judged and given points according to the speed, difficulty and presentation of their stances, kicks, punches, balances and jumps.
While it will take time to educate Australians about the intricacies of the sport, Wushu Australia honorary president Walt Missingham believes the IOC won't be able to deny the pull of the dollar when it comes to considering the sport's Olympic inclusion.
"The Olympic movement is driven very much by television audience," said Missingham, who produced the documentary The Intercepting Fist about Bruce Lee's life.
"Wushu would bring multiple hundreds of millions of people in China and the greater Asia region into TV. And with that it brings in new sponsors. It opens up avenues for companies to do business in China.
"And you can't ignore China's political and economic clout on the global stage and the Olympic Games is very light on in terms of Asian sports."
When pressed on whether the commercial aspect was a motivating factor for the IOC, wushu's Olympic bid committee member Missingham was matter of fact.
"Do we deal with the reality or the public perception?" he said.
"If there's anyone out there that truly doesn't think the Olympic Games is highly motivated by the commercial imperative, I'm sorry, but they're on the wrong planet.
"It's a multi-billion-dollar exercise. In fact, without money, the Olympics simply cannot function.
"In tandem with that, you've got to take on board the reach of wushu not just into China and greater Asia, but into the African nations too where wushu is very popular. So you have two significant continents that are desiring that wushu be included."
Gene Ching
Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
Author of Shaolin Trips
Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart
I figured this would be an appropriate spot for this although most of the conversation surrounds Wushu, but looks like the IOC is dropping wrestling from the Olympics in 2020. It caught me by surprise as i thought if they dropped anything it wouldn't be wrestling, which is one of the things i think of when talking Olympics. Of course, it opens the door to add a new sport, wonder if this would lead to Wushu
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle8481020/
It boggles the mind...
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !
But they could get rid of some of the really dumb stuff like ribbon dance and ball toss and catch in the rhythmic gymnastics lump .
heck, I'd even get rid of synchronized swimming if it wasn't so funny to watch...
wrestling? wtf is wrong wit these IOC dunderheads?
Kung Fu is good for you.
it's just bizarre - wrestling was one of the events at the ancient games and is one of the pillars of combat sports; just don't get it...
Being a former epee fencer, I've been expecting pentathlon to be cut every year. Never wrestling.
@DJ: I love rhythmic gymnastics. It's one of my fav events.
Gene Ching
Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
Author of Shaolin Trips
Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart
I like floor gymnastics.
Never was a fan of the rhythmic stuff.
Way too girly girl for me.
Kung Fu is good for you.
Not even uber flexible athletic girls?
I like rhythmic gymnastics because its interaction with an inanimate tool, which I can analog to weapons practice. How much different is a ribbon from a long tasseled sword? It really appeals to the Jackie Chan side of me, to be able to make the inanimate animate, like Fred Astaire and a coat rack.
Gene Ching
Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
Author of Shaolin Trips
Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart
[QUOTE=David Jamieson;1211029]But they could get rid of some of the really dumb stuff like ribbon dance and ball toss and catch in the rhythmic gymnastics lump .
heck, I'd even get rid of synchronized swimming if it wasn't so funny to watch...
wrestling? wtf is wrong with these IOC dunderheads?[/QUOTE]
God only knows. I can't think of a more universal and authentic expression of individual human competition than the grappling arts. Maybe wrestling doesn't have enough entertainment value. By that standard they should dump it all in favor of video games.
Yeah dropping wrestling makes no sense
It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand. - Apache Proverb
Personally, I think it has something do to with the Pope resigning. Take that where you will...Olympics Moves to Drop Wrestling in 2020
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: February 12, 2013 228 Comments
Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling will be contested at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but they will be excluded from the 2020 Summer Games, for which a host city has not yet been named, the Olympic committee said Tuesday.
The decision to drop wrestling was made by secret ballot by the committee’s 15-member executive board at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The exact vote and the reasons for the decision were not given in detail.
There is a chance that the Olympic committee can reverse that decision in May, when it considers a 26th sport to add to the 2020 Games. A final decision will be made in September, but wrestling’s Olympic future seems doubtful, said veteran observers of the Games.
In recent years the I.O.C. has expressed concern about the size of the Summer Games and wanted to cap the number of athletes at about 10,500. It has also said it wants to enhance its modernity by drawing younger viewers among the international television audience. On Tuesday the Olympic committee said in a statement that it wanted to ensure that it remained “relevant to sports fans of all generations.”
Olympic-style wrestling, with its amateur roots and absence of visibility except during the Games, lacks superstars with widespread international acclaim like Lionel Messi in soccer, Kobe Bryant in basketball and Tiger Woods in golf. And the popularity of Olympic-style wrestling in the United States is far surpassed by the staged bombast of professional wrestling.
Sports like snowboarding have been added to the Winter Games to broaden the audience. Golf and rugby will be added to the 2016 Rio Games. Among the sports that wrestling must compete with for future inclusion are climbing, rollerblading and wakeboarding.
The committee might also have grown frustrated that Greco-Roman wrestling did not include women, experts said. Women began participating in freestyle wrestling at the 2004 Athens Games.
Politics also play an inevitable role in the workings of the International Olympic Committee. Among the sports surviving Tuesday’s vote was modern pentathlon, also threatened and less popular internationally than wrestling. But modern pentathlon, a five-event sport that includes shooting, horseback riding and running, was invented by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games. And it is supported by Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., son of the former Olympic committee president and a member of its board.
Mark Adams, a spokesman for the Olympic committee, told reporters in Lausanne that Tuesday’s vote was a “process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics.” He also said: “In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It’s not a case of what’s wrong with wrestling, it is what’s right with the 25 core sports.”
Wrestling’s world governing body, known by its initials as FILA and based in Switzerland, said it was “greatly astonished” by Tuesday’s decision and would take “all necessary measures” to persuade the Olympic committee to keep the sport in the Summer Games.
The dropping of wrestling faced immediate and widespread criticism.
“I think this is a really stupid decision,” the Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. Wrestling, he said, “was in the ancient Olympics.” He added: “It has been in the modern Olympics since 1896. In London 29 different countries won medals. This is a popular sport.”
Wrestling seemed in many ways to be the perfect Olympic sport. It is as fundamental as running; held in 180 countries, including the United States, Russia, India and Iran; and contested in a small area that is easily followed on television. And the Olympics are wrestling’s ultimate competition, which is not the case in sports like soccer and basketball.
“When you think of the Olympics you think of wrestling,” said Cael Sanderson, the wrestling coach at Penn State and a 2004 Olympic champion. “It was a marquee event in ancient Greece and in the modern Games. After running, it was the next sport to be part of the Games. Like track and field, the Olympics are the highest level. Some sports, it’s just not as special.”
The dropping of wrestling delivered another blow to the United States, which recently lost medal chances in baseball and softball, which have also been dropped from the Olympics. American wrestlers won more than 100 medals in the Summer Games.
“I don’t think anybody thought this would happen,” said Rulon Gardner, who won a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Games and a bronze at the 2004 Athens Games. “It’s a shame. This is one of the original sports. It’s been around for thousands of years. The Olympic movement has gone astray. It’s moving in the direction not of history but of ratings. Is it about mainstream and money, or is it about amateur sports competing at the highest level on the world stage?”
Some wrestling officials said that FILA, wrestling’s world governing body, needed to change the sport quickly to retain any chance of future inclusion in the Olympics. Modern pentathlon, for instance, has reduced its competition from four or five days to one day.
“We need to make some drastic changes in the sport, make it more attractive, especially for TV audiences,” Mikhail Mamiashvili, president of the Russian wrestling federation and an 1988 Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman competition, told Reuters.
Michael Novogratz, the team leader for the United States freestyle team at the London Games, said wrestling lacked influence with the Olympic committee’s executive board, where power is concentrated in Western Europe. Wrestling is more popular in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States.
“This wasn’t a decision of thought; this was a decision of friends,” said Novogratz, who is the chairman of the United States Wrestling Foundation and a principal and member of the board of directors of the Fortress Investment Group.
Novogratz also said that FILA had “dropped the ball and did not do a good enough job selling the merits of wrestling to the I.O.C.” He said, though, that he expected a “loud and aggressive response” from the international wrestling community.
“I know that wrestling is a strong sport around the world,” said Bruce Baumgartner, a two-time Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling who is now the athletic director at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. “It’s not just the U.S. and Russia. It’s a confusing, sad day for me. But I’ve been around the Olympic movement for a long time. It’s not over till it’s over.”
While wrestling remains popular at the high school level in the United States, and had added teams at the Division II and Division III college level in recent years, it has struggled at the Division I college level with budget constraints and what some supporters say are requirements for gender equity. Loss of Olympic participation would hurt the financing for USA Wrestling, the national governing body, and undoubtedly send the sport into decline.
“When you have your Super Bowl every four years, if you take that away, that’s a scary thing,” said Sanderson, the Penn State coach and former Olympic champion.
Gene Ching
Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
Author of Shaolin Trips
Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart
If rollerberby or karate pushes out wrestling, I will never watch the Olympics again...!!!
Sacrificing an ancient sport to accommodate some newschool popular "let's attract the kids" hustle is ridiculous. The olympics were nearing joke status as it was, now this stuff... Boooo....!!!
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympic...201325406.html
Golf did wrestling in. It boggles the mind.