3-on-3 Basketball, BMX Freestyle Next Olympic Sport?

HOLD THE PHONES! The International Olympic Committee has to be kidding me right?! It was just in February that they announce they were dropping Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling a sport that has been around since the Olympics began thousands of years ago. Although wrestling will compete in one more Olympics, the 2016 games in Rio de Janerio, it will be gone by the 2020 games, where the host city has yet to be determined. 

Past Olympic wrestling champions have spoken publicly about the move by the IOC. Khasan Baroev of Russia, 120 kg (264.5 pounds) gold medalist at the 2004 Summer Olympics called the move “mind boggling” and American Rulon Gardner, winner of an Olympic gold medal at the Sydney Games, told The Associated Press, "it's the IOC trying to change the Olympics to make it more mainstream and more viewer-friendly instead of sticking to what they founded the Olympics on.”

 

Well Rulon, you are absolutely correct. Yesterday it has been announced that the IOC is mulling the idea of adding

BMX freestyle and 3-on-3 hoops. I mean really? 3-on-3 basketball?  The IOC could not come up with a better idea? And to make room for it they eliminate wrestling? I mean holy, this is a terrible idea. 3-on-3 basketball is for the street, not for the Olympics. The traditional 5-on-5 basketball is already an Olympic event, and that is enough basketball for the Olympics. If 3-on-3 basketball gets added to the Olympics it is only a matter of time before they add a Slam Dunk contest. 

I understand the possibly adding BMX freestyle, but only a little. I am not sure that the Olympics understand something; THERE IS ALREADY AN ACTION SPORTS COMPETITION. Hello IOC, there is this event called the X-Games that covers all the action sports that you want to adopt. And while the X-Games are special because it has events that the Olympics do not, the Olympics are special because it has a tradition to several sports, including wrestling. 

The IOC should understand that people watch the Olympics as much for the tradition as the sports and they should not convert to something that they are not, because that something already exists. It is, I believe a decision that the IOC will ultimately regret. Okay, I understand that this just being kick around, but in order for it to be kicked around someone really had to think that this was a good idea and quite simply, it’s not. I am an advocate of keeping wrestling in the Olympics for its tradition, especially if its elimination means adding 3-on-3 basketball and BMX freestyle.