NEW YORK, August 2 -- Normally people in the combat sports do not get too worked up about the bidding of cities to host an Olympic Games. But the bid of New York City, one of eight U.S. cities currently vying for the 2012 Summer Games, actually holds a lot of promise for the combat sports, and wrestling in particular.    This issue came up at a press conference held Thursday by NYC2012, the organization leading New York's bid, as they hosted a site evaluation team from the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), in town to examine the plan for a Big Apple Olympics. This was the fifth stop on a break-neck tour of the eight U.S. bid cities. Tampa, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are to follow, with the team having already visited Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, and Washington, D.C. The USOC will narrow the list of candidates likely before the end of November, and eventually select one city to submit as its bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by November, 2002. The IOC will select the winner for 2012 in 2005.    One key part of NYC2012's demonstration that New York can and should host such a major sporting event is that NYC2012 is this year playing host and acting as the organizing committee for the World Championships of Wrestling. This event will feature competition in freestyle, Greco-Roman, and women's wrestling, involving an expected more than 600 competitors from nearly 60 countries. The venue will be the world-famous Madison Square Garden, with the wrestling running four straight days, from September 26 to September 29. It will also mark the first time that all three styles of wrestling will conduct their world championships at the same time and place.    Dan Doctoroff, an investment banker who is president of NYC 2012, noted that the World Championships of Wrestling is "the largest international Olympic sport competition in the United States this year." And he was clear on the significance of the wrestling championships for the NYC 2012 bid. "We know that a big part of our potential success," he explained, "if we're selected, is how we partner with the USOC. Going out and attracting and successfully executing these large international events is critical. We very much look forward to that partnership and to that event."    These sentiments were echoed by Charles Moore, a 1952 gold medalist in the 400-meter hurdles and now chairman of the USOC's Bid Evaluation Task Force (and a New Yorker himself who flashed his own Metrocard to prove it). Hosting "an international, a world sport competition, that's very important," he said. "We look to every city, and we not only look at what they have done in multi-sport, in international events and international sports events, but we look at what they plan to do between now and 2005, when the decision will be taken."    Mike Moran of the USOC was even more emphatic about the need for the U.S. to host such events. "The IOC at its meeting in Moscow two weeks ago made it very clear that for the United States to be a player world-wide we are going to have to host many more international events than we are right now. We think we've done a good job of that. But it is a clear mandate now to us, and a commitment we have made over the next decade, to try to recruit as many international competitions to be held in the United States, not just the big ones, but the ones of the emerging sports as well," he recommended. Thus hosting events like the World Championships of Wrestling is "one of the keystones of our future in the international community and a keystone to us getting the games again."    He also noted that by the end of 2002's Winter Games in Salt Lake City, the U.S. will have been an Olympic host four times in the last 22 years. "That hasn't happened anywhere else in the world," he said. The U.S. also has hosted the Olympics nine times since the modern games were established. "No other country has been able to do that. But we're going to have to work hard to continue that legacy in the future."    The NYC2012's hosting of the World Championships of Wrestling has also, not surprisingly, been applauded throughout the wrestling community. This "shows a commitment to our sport," said Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling's Director of Special Projects, reached by phone when asked to comment on the importance of the World Championships. He also pointed out that other cities' bid groups had worked to support wrestling, such as the Dallas group that hosted the 2000 Olympic trials and the Washington-Baltimore group that hosted the World Cup of Freestyle Wrestling.    It is thus fitting and proper that wrestling, the world's oldest sport and, of course, one of the original Olympic sports, should play such a key role in determining where the Games are held in the 21st Century. We will be having many more reports leading up to this historic event, the World Championships of Wrestling, September 26 to 29, at Madison Square Garden.    Contact Eddie Goldman at maxfeddie@aol.com