The United States Wrestling Foundation, a non-profit organization developed to support USA Wrestling and American wrestling, has made a $20,000 donation to the Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling (CPOW) for the Keep Olympic Wrestling effort. CPOW is an ad-hoc committee of USA Wrestling focused on retaining wrestling’s Olympic status.

This is one of three major donations made to CPOW in the last week from wrestling organizations. Team Georgia, USA Wrestling’s state association in Georgia, has donated $25,240.75 to CPOW. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame also donated $25,000 to CPOW during the past week.

The vote on whether wrestling will be a provisional sport at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics is set for Sunday, September 8.

“The Foundation is closely linked to CPOW and USA Wrestling,” said U.S. Wrestling Foundation President Jeff Waters. “Many of the members of CPOW are also Board members of the Foundation. Our mission is to help wrestling long term. CPOW has a much more immediate mission. For the Foundation to support CPOW is natural. What is more important than keeping wrestling in the Olympics?”

Waters also noted that the U.S. Wrestling Foundation was pleased that CPOW was supporting the Rally4Wrestling event in Alpharetta, Ga. on Labor Day weekend, and wanted this donation to assist in that effort.

The mission of the U.S. Wrestling Foundation follows: “The United States Wrestling Foundation (the Foundation) is dedicated to the growth of amateur wrestling in the United States.”

In the past year, the Foundation has supported a number of USA Wrestling projects, including sending a U.S. FILA Junior wrestling team on a competition and training tour to Bulgaria, as well as providing funding for the developmental resident athlete program at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

The Foundation as also approved grants to assist in the creation of five new college wrestling programs, with one already announced and as many as four announcements expected in the next few weeks.

“We have accomplished a lot this year, even while the focus of the American wrestling community has been on the Olympic wrestling issue. We have found a way in the last eight months to have an impact. Our goal is to have leverage and major impact with the projects that we help fund,” said Waters.

The Foundation is pleased to assist in the Keep Olympic Wrestling movement, and looks to grow its activities in the future.

“We hope to use the Olympic situation to galvanize the wrestling community to organize and promote our sport better. We expect to be a major player in that mission moving forward,” said Waters.