AlQa'dah 2, 1434, Sep 8, 2013, SPA -- Wrestling was reinstated into the Olympic programme for the 2020 and 2024 Games on Sunday, beating baseball/softball and squash after the ancient sport underwent sweeping reforms since being provisionally dropped in February, dpa reported. Wrestling obtained a majority of 49 votes in a secret ballot among 95 members of the International Olympic Committee after all three sports had made a 20-minute presentation. Baseball/softball, not on the programme since 2008, got 24 votes. Squash, bidding to become a new Olympic sport, had to settle for 22. "Wrestling is not a new sport, but the wrestling we are presenting now is a new wrestling," Nenad Lalovic, president of the sport's ruling body FILA told a news conference. "What we tried to do is to update our sport, to make it more spectacular, more watchable," he said. Lalovic noted, however, that a long road remains ahead. "Our fight doesn't stop there. We have to improve our sport in order to become a core (Olympic) sport," he stressed. "We have to compete again in four years to become a core sport," Lalovic said. "What we have to do in four years is more difficult." Wrestling was dropped by the IOC executive board in February, but got into a shortlist with the other two in order to get back into the Games through widespread reform and lobbying from many countries including an unlikely Russia-Iran-US alliance. The vote came after a proposal from Canadian member Dick Pound was rejected to postpone the decision for five months until the Session ahead of the Sochi Winter Games in order to allow a new sport into the programme. Earlier, the IOC approved the 25 core sports at Summer Games with a 77-16 majority. Rugby sevens and golf will be added in 2016 and wrestling now brings the number of sports back to the maximum 28.
