Hopefully, the worldwide condemnation the International Olympics Committee received in February for dropping wrestling from the list of sports to be held at the 2020 Olympics will be enough to carry a local favorite back onto the world stage.

Anyone who showed displeasure last winter over the decision, your voices made a difference.

But there is always more to the story. As we noted in February in an editorial, what hadn’t landed in the mainstream spotlight much was that the worldwide body that governs wrestling wasn’t playing nicely with the IOC. The governing body is called FILA, and the threat of removal no doubt helped forge a better relationship between the two.

FILA made changes swiftly. It has added more women in judging roles. It added two women’s weight classes, and it made rules easier to understand for TV audiences.

It remains to be seen whether FILA does away with singlets.

Wrestling now is among three sports on a short list for a single remaining spot in the 2020 Summer Games. It is vying with a baseball/softball bid and with squash.

The IOC likes TV ratings, most of all. In fact, that was the reason the IOC said it dropped wrestling, one of the few ancient sports that remain in the modern games. TV commercials, after all, are where the revenue is that keeps much of the Olympics afloat.

Our estimation is that the Olympics would favor baseball if only Major League Baseball would free its athletes to play in the way that the NBA and NHL does for basketball and hockey. Baseball players in the Olympics would get high ratings in several countries. That probably won’t happen, because players playing in the Olympics would disrupt pro baseball’s seven-month slog of a schedule. Still, including baseball on the short list allows IOC and MLB leaders to keep talking. It’s a token move. Wrestling will get the nod, and squash will be squashed.

Let’s hope the next time the IOC takes a look at removing sports, it keeps wrestling off the chopping block.