This Greco-Roman wrestling competition consists of a single-elimination tournament, with a repechage used to determine the winner of two bronze medals. The two finalists face off for gold and silver medals. Each wrestler who loses to one of the two finalists moves into the repechage, culminating in a pair of bronze medal matches featuring the semifinal losers each facing the remaining repechage opponent from their half of the bracket.
Each bout consists of up to three rounds, lasting two minutes apiece. The wrestler who scores more points in each round is the winner of that rounds; the bout ends when one wrestler has won two rounds (and thus the match).
Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian was originally awarded a bronze medal. However, at the medal ceremony he shook hands with his competitors, walked off the podium and threw his medal down on the mat in protest at the judging in his semi-final match.[1] On August 16, 2008, the IOC disqualified him for throwing a tantrum, and they decided to strip him of his medal because they felt it amounted to a political demonstration and was disrespectful to other athletes. No one received that medal afterwards. [2]
Controversy
Pelle Svensson, a former two-time world champion (Greco-Roman 100 kg class) and member of board of FILA from 1990 to 2007, spoke out in support of the allegations of corruption during the semifinals in the men's Greco-Roman wrestling 84 kg at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, when Ara Abrahamian lost against Andrea Minguzzi from Italy after a controversial ruling by the referee. It was later reported that the referee of the match, Jean-Marc Petoud from Switzerland, is a first cousin of the current President of FILA Raphaël Martinetti.[3] Abrahamian, who was stripped of his bronze medal in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics after dropping the medal in protest, has received a level of vindication through the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). His protest revolved around a second round bout with Italian Andrea Minguzzi, where a penalty wasn't assessed until after the round had concluded. Abrahamian's coach was denied a chance to review the call via video, and FILA also refused an official protest from the coach.[4] Minguzzi later took gold in the event. The IOC decided not to award French wrestler Mélonin Noumonvi the bronze medal, because a disqualification did not happen before. Noumonvi furiously attacked the officials for not allowing him a medal, before security restrained him from doing any harm. Abrahamian was banned for life.
Oleksandr Daragan (UKR)
Saman Tahmasebi (IRI)
Nazmi Avluca (TUR)
Badri Khasaia (GEO)
Zoltán Fodor (HUN)
Shalva Gadabadze (AZE)
Haykel Achouri (TUN)
Ma Sanyi (CHN)
Mélonin Noumonvi (FRA)
Andrea Minguzzi (ITA)
Aleksey Mishin (RUS)
Andrey Samokhin (KAZ)
Shingo Matsumoto (JPN)
Ara Abrahamian (SWE)
Denis Forov (ARM)
Brad Vering (USA)
Artur Michalkiewicz (POL)
Kim Jung-sub (KOR)
Attila Bátky (SVK)
Yunior Estrada (CUB)
