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Reuters
March 3 2013
Wrestling champion goes on hunger strike over Games axe
(Reuters) - Double Olympic wrestling champion Armen Nazaryan has
decided to go on a hunger strike to protest against the sport's
possible exclusion from the Games.
"I'm protesting against the recommendation to drop wrestling from the
Olympics," Nazaryan, 38, was quoted as saying by the Russian wrestling
federation on its website (www.wrestrus.ru).
"Wrestling has always been part of the Olympic program and it's not
right to exclude it from the Games. I'm starting my hunger strike and
from now on I will drink only syrup," said Armenia-born Nazaryan, who
won gold in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1996 Atlanta Games, competing
for his native country.
He then switched his allegiance to Bulgaria, winning his second
Olympic title four years later in Sydney. Nazaryan also won three
world titles for Bulgaria from 2002 to 2005.
Last month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made a surprise
recommendation to drop the ancient sport from the 2020 Summer Games.
The decision has outraged the wrestling community throughout the
world, prompting two former champions, Bulgaria's Valentin Yordanov
and Russia's Sagid Murtazaliev, to return their Olympic gold medals
back to the IOC in protest.
Part of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and all further editions,
except the 1900 Paris Games, wrestling now joins seven other
candidates battling for one spot in a revamped program.
The IOC executive board will meet in St Petersburg in May to determine
which of them will be put to the vote at the IOC session in Buenos
Aires in September.
(Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/02/us-olympics-wrestling-nazaryan-idUSBRE92107K20130302
March 3 2013
Wrestling champion goes on hunger strike over Games axe
(Reuters) - Double Olympic wrestling champion Armen Nazaryan has
decided to go on a hunger strike to protest against the sport's
possible exclusion from the Games.
"I'm protesting against the recommendation to drop wrestling from the
Olympics," Nazaryan, 38, was quoted as saying by the Russian wrestling
federation on its website (www.wrestrus.ru).
"Wrestling has always been part of the Olympic program and it's not
right to exclude it from the Games. I'm starting my hunger strike and
from now on I will drink only syrup," said Armenia-born Nazaryan, who
won gold in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1996 Atlanta Games, competing
for his native country.
He then switched his allegiance to Bulgaria, winning his second
Olympic title four years later in Sydney. Nazaryan also won three
world titles for Bulgaria from 2002 to 2005.
Last month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made a surprise
recommendation to drop the ancient sport from the 2020 Summer Games.
The decision has outraged the wrestling community throughout the
world, prompting two former champions, Bulgaria's Valentin Yordanov
and Russia's Sagid Murtazaliev, to return their Olympic gold medals
back to the IOC in protest.
Part of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and all further editions,
except the 1900 Paris Games, wrestling now joins seven other
candidates battling for one spot in a revamped program.
The IOC executive board will meet in St Petersburg in May to determine
which of them will be put to the vote at the IOC session in Buenos
Aires in September.
(Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/02/us-olympics-wrestling-nazaryan-idUSBRE92107K20130302