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Wrestling indicates tentative plans for world championships

Oct. 14,2001 Japan Economic Newswire

Officials of the Japan Wrestling Federation (JWF) indicated Sunday that they
plan to dispatch teams to the world championships in November and December
on condition that the team members approve.
The world championships were originally scheduled to be held at Madison
Square Garden in New York on Sept. 26-29, but were postponed in the wake of
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11.
Wrestling's world governing body FILA, meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland,
last Wednesday, rescheduled the freestyle and women's world championships
for Bulgaria in late November and the greco-roman world meet in Greece in
December.JWF officials said they were concerned about the safety of the
wrestlers and
delegation members they plan to send to the world championships as the
United States leads a series of retaliatory strikes on military and
suspected terrorist sites in Afghanistan.
The JWF board of directors, meeting before the start of the wrestling
competition at the National Sports Festival, said they would not force the
athletes to compete in the world championships.
They have asked the athletes for their agreement to compete in the
championships and will make their decision based upon the will of the wrestlers