In a vote take by International Olympic Committee members in Buenos Aires yesterday, wrestling held off rivals squash and baseball.
Wrestling had been an Olympic sport for more than a hundred years until being dropped from its programme earlier in 2013.
However, wrestling needed just one round of voting to secure its spot in Japan for seven years’ time, collecting 49 of the 95 cast.
The joint bid by baseball/softball was second with 24 votes while squash received 22.
Nenad Lalovic of Serbia, who took over as president of the International Wrestling Federation in February, said: “We made mistakes but we decided to listen and learn and those mistakes will not happen again.
“We have modernised our Federation, our constitution has become much more democratic with more women and athletes in the administration and with the referees absolutely independent.”
The decision comes less than 24 hours after Tokyo were awarded the 2020 Games at the expense of Istanbul and Madrid.
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