Wrestling at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's Greco-Roman

The men's Greco-Roman was the only wrestling event on the Wrestling at the 1896 Summer Olympics programme.

Men's Greco-Roman at the Games of the I Olympiad
Schuhmann (left) before the Olympic wrestling final, which he won
Venue	Panathinaiko Stadium
Dates	10–11 April
Competitors	5 from 4 nations
Medalists
Carl Schuhmann  Germany Georgios Tsitas  Greece Stephanos Christopoulos  Greece

Wrestling at the 1896 Summer Olympics
Greco-Roman	men

No weight classes existed for the wrestling competition, held in the Panathinaiko Stadium which meant that there would only be one winner among competitors of all sizes. It was the only time that an open wrestling event was held; in 1904, when wrestling returned to the Olympic programme, weight classes were implemented.

The rules used were similar to modern Greco-Roman wrestling, although there was no time limit, and not all leg holds were forbidden (in contrast to current rules). Apart from the two Greek contestants, all competitors had previously been active in other sports. The wrestling competition was held on 10 April, except for the continuation of the final match on 11 April.

The tournament used ancient Greek single-elimination rules. There were no brackets as under modern single-elimination rules; instead, all participants in a round were paired off with one bye if a round had an odd number of participants left. This format could result in a semifinals round with only 3 competitors (as happened in both the 1896 wrestling and doubles tennis events, which started with 5 wrestlers/pairs: the first round had two matches, with one wrestler/pair having a bye, and the second round had only one match, with another wrestler/pair having a bye; a modern tournament would have had one match in the first round with three byes, leading to two semifinals).