Early Olympic Games and Wrestling
Wrestling in the Olympics is often recognized as one of the Olympics oldest events. As far as records can show wrestling in some form has always been present in all Olympic Games. Wrestling was a popular sport in the ancient Olympic Games due to the Greeks passion form wrestling. Wrestling stayed in the every Olympic Game Greece had held. However, after the rise of the Roman Empire, the Romans conquered Greece and took over. As the Roman Empire expanded, the Romans permitted more and more countries to participate in the Olympics, such as the Eastern countries. The conquered Greeks during this time became infuriated due to their very own Olympic heroes being beaten by competitors from other countries. In this time Asian countries show their power in the Olympics by producing several champions in wrestling. The Roman Empire fell shortly after the Greeks kept the Olympics up for a while and then stopped, until the creation of the modern Olympic Games.
Greco-Roman wrestling in the Modern Olympic Games
The Modern Olympic were created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1896 after a 1500 year absence. With this he brought back the ancient art of wrestling as well as many other sports from the ancient Olympics. After the introduction of Greco-Roman wrestling to the modern Olympic Games the sport became a pillar of the Olympics once again. But in this version of Greco-Roman wrestling there were no weight classes, meaning anyone could compete in the same division. People thought this would be the downfall of smaller men, but a 5 foot 4 inch German named Carl Schumann ended up winning gold. Later in 1904 and 11 hour match in the Stockholm Olympics persuaded organizers to impose time restraints on matches in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, France. eight years later a Swedish man named Ivar Johansson shocked the world by winning the gold at the 82 kilogram weight class then cut more than ten pounds so he could enter the 72 kilogram weight class, and he won gold in that too. These are just a few of the remarkable feats make by athletes competing in the Greco-Roman or Freestyle wrestling in the Olympic Games.