2008 Beijing Olympics - Wrestling

China Agricultural University Gymnasium
Beijing, China

Wrestling was part of the first modern Olympics summer games in 1896

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More information about Olympic Wrestling

Olympic wrestling is split into 2 disciplines: Freestyle and Greco-Roman, and sub-divided into weight classes. Men compete in both categories, women only compete in freestyle.

Greco-Roman differs from Freestyle in that you are only permitted to attack and hold above the waist. This is only the second Olympics to feature women's wrestling as an official Olympic medal event.

Olympic wrestling medals are awarded in the following weight classes:

Men's Weight Classes for Freestyle and Greco Roman Events

• 55 kg
• 60 kg
• 66 kg
• 74 kg
• 84 kg
• 96 kg
• 120 kg

Women's Weight Classes for Freestyle Events

• 48 kg
• 55 kg
• 63 kg
• 72 kg

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Olympic Wrestling

Olympic sport since 1896

If the Olympic Games are a history of mankind, wrestling is the prologue. When the ancient Games of the Olympiad were born, wrestling already was an ancient game. Widely recognised as the world's oldest competitive sport, wrestling appeared in a series of Egyptian wall paintings as many as 5000 years ago. When the Games began in 776 BC, more than two millenniums later, it included wrestling, and, in the years that followed, wrestling featured as the main event.

The sport would return in a similar role when the Olympic Games returned after a 1500-year absence in 1896. Organisers, seeking direct links to ancient times, found a natural in the sport that had enjoyed popularity across much of the ancient world, from Greece, Assyria and Babylon to India, China and Japan. They resurrected Greco-Roman wrestling, a style they believed to be an exact carryover from the Greek and Roman wrestlers of old.

In Greco-Roman wrestling, the wrestlers used only their arms and upper bodies to attack. They could hold only those same parts of their opponents. It worked nicely from a historical perspective, but another breezier style was sweeping across Great Britain and the United States by then. Known as "catch as catch can", it had become standard fare - and popular professional entertainment - at fairs and festivals in both countries.

In 1904, the Olympic Games added the second wrestling event and called it "freestyle". Now, wrestlers could use their legs for pushing, lifting and tripping, and they could hold opponents above or below the waist.

Freestyle Wrestling and Greco-Roman Wrestling

When the modern Olympic Games resumed in Athens in 1896, organisers considered wrestling so historically significant that it became a focus of the Games. They remembered tales of wrestling competition in 708 BC, of oiled bodies fighting on sand in the ancient Games. Greco-Roman wrestling was deemed a pure reincarnation of ancient Greek and Roman wrestling. Eight years later, Olympic officials added a second category with far less history and far less grandeur, but great popularity. Commonly known as "catch as catch can", freestyle wrestling had become the staple of 19th-century fairs and festivals in Great Britain and the United States, a form of professional entertainment. Like Greco-Roman wrestling, it became a staple of the Games themselves. In Greco-Roman competition, now dominated by Russia, wrestlers use only their arms and upper bodies to attack. In freestyle, wrestlers also use their legs and may hold opponents above or below the waist. The Olympic freestyle medallists in 1996 represented 17 different countries, 15 in Sydney and 17 in Athens.

COMPETITION

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, there were seven events in men’s freestyle. For the first time ever, women participated in four. A total of 344 athletes competed in the three disciplines of this sport, freestyle, Greco-Roman and women’s wrestling.

Wrestling Equipment

BOOTS

Made of soft leather with no heels or studs.

WRESTLING SUIT

Made of stretch material, it must be either red or blue.