It is a cause that unites some of Wall Street’s top financiers with presidents Putin and Ahmadi-Nejad – the struggle to reinstate wrestling as an Olympic sport.

The International Olympic Committee unleashed hell and fury from wrestling’s numerous global outposts last month when it announced that one of the few sports that links the modern games with those of ancient Greece was likely to be dropped after the 2016 games in Brazil.

A Russian former Olympic wrestling champion returned his gold medal to the IOC in protest. In the margins of the US-Iran nuclear talks, officials expressed their mutual contempt for the IOC. And in the executive suites of Wall Street, the workplace of a sizeable number of former wrestlers, the collection tins are being rattled to fund a lobbying campaign aimed at reversing the decision.