Top Stories of the Decade

Wrestling Expands to Include Cadet, U23 and U15 World Championship Events

By Andrew Hipps

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (December 25) -- Over the past decade, United World Wrestling has continued to expand its world championship events, reinstating the world championships for cadet wrestlers and adding world championship events for U23 and U15 wrestlers.

The first Cadet World Championships took place in 1975. However, it did not become an annual event on the competition calendar until 1987. Starting in 1987, the Cadet World Championships were contested for 13 consecutive years before being removed from the competition calendar after 1999. After a dozen years, the event was reinstated in 2011 and has once again become an annual world championship event that attracts the world's top 17-and-under wrestlers.

In 2017, United World Wrestling announced the addition of the U23 World Championships to its official competition calendar. The inaugural event took place that same year in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The U23 World Championships event was created following the success of the U23 European Championships in 2016 where more than 400 wrestlers from 34 nations competed for the continental gold. The large turnout was attributed to a desire by many national federations to give their top prospects a chance to compete in a meaningful federation-based championship.

Wrestling success tends to favor the young, with the average age of 2016 Olympic champion being just 23.1 years old for freestyle wrestling, 24.6 years in women’s wrestling and 27.5 years old in Greco-Roman.

In 2019, United World Wrestling held the World School Combat Games, the first-ever world championship event for U15 wrestlers, in Budapest, Hungary. Ten nations competed in freestyle and Greco-Roman, while seven competed in women’s wrestling. 

U-15 continental championship events were also held for Asia, Europe and the Americas.

#development

UWW Academy launches three new courses aimed at sports administration

By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (January 15) --- Continuing its efforts to educate the stakeholders and develop a workforce of skilled individuals, the United World Wrestling’s Development Department has launched three new programmes on UWW Academy.

The courses on the UWW Academy, the official learning platform that covers multiple aspects of sports administration. The latest educational programmes added to the portal on December 14 are Managing Finances, Managing Marketing and Organising a Major Sport Event.

The UWW Academy, established under the leadership of UWW President Nenad Lalovic, is an all-encompassing online portal designed to educate, provide information, necessary learning tools and resources to be able to assist different stakeholders and enhance the knowledge and value of wrestling.

As part of UWW commitment to good governance and transparency, we established these courses to provide educational programmes and tools to all affiliated national federations. We are excited to see the improvements made by our stakeholders in these last years. Thanks to the various continental workshops organised at the occasion of the continental championships, the NFs have established a mid-long term strategic plan with the support of other sporting and non- sporting entities such as the; European Union, Olympic Council of Asia, ONOC, OS, etc.

Apart from the three newly released courses, the UWW Academy had published three courses earlier in the year, covering a wide range of important topics from a sports administration point of view. They included: Organising an Olympic Sport Organisation, Strategically Managing an Olympic Sport Organisation and Managing Human Resources.

The addition of all these courses, relevant to global wrestling, will give members from all nations an equal opportunity to benefit from it and play a role in the continued growth of the sport of wrestling.