Wrestling at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's freestyle welterweight


The men's freestyle welterweight competition at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki took place from 20 July to 23 July at Messuhalli. Nations were limited to one competitor.

Competition format

This freestyle wrestling competition continued to use the "bad points" elimination system introduced at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Greco-Roman and at the 1932 Summer Olympics for freestyle wrestling, removing the slight modification introduced in 1936 and used until 1948. Each round featured all wrestlers pairing off and wrestling one bout. The loser received 3 points. The winner received 1 point if the win was by decision and 0 points if the win was by fall. At the end of each round, any wrestler with at least 5 points was eliminated. This elimination continued until the medal rounds, which began when 3 wrestlers remained. These 3 wrestlers each faced each other in a round-robin medal round ; record within the medal round determined medals, with bad points breaking ties.

Results

Round 1

; Bouts
WinnerNationVictory TypeLoserNation
Per BerlinDecision, 3–0Daniel Hauser
Anton MackowiakDecision, 3–0Arvedo Cecchini
Alberto LongarellaDecision, 2–1Nick Mohammed
William SmithFallAntonio Rosado
Cyril MartinDecision, 3–0Vladislav Sekal
Mohamed Hassan MoussaFallJos De Jong
Tsugio YamazakiDecision, 2–1Jean-Baptiste Leclerc
Bev ScottDecision, 3–0Don Irvine
Mehmet Ali IslioğluDecision, 2–1Vasyl Rybalko
Abdollah MojtabaviDecision, 2–1Aleksanteri Keisala

; Points
RankWrestlerNationStartEarnedTotal
1000
1000
3011
3011
3011
3011
3011
3011
3011
3011
11033
11033
11033
11033
11033
11033
11033
11033
11033
11033

Round 2

It is unclear why Leclerc was not eliminated but instead continued on to round 3.
; Bouts
WinnerNationVictory TypeLoserNation
Anton MackowiakDecision, 3–0Daniel Hauser
Per BerlinFallArvedo Cecchini
William SmithDecision, 2–0Nick Mohammed
Alberto LongarellaFallAntonio Rosado
Vladislav SekalFallJos De Jong
Mohamed Hassan MoussaFallCyril Martin
Tsugio YamazakiDecision, 3–0Don Irvine
Bev ScottDecision, 2–1Jean-Baptiste Leclerc
Abdollah MojtabaviDecision, 2–1Vasyl Rybalko
Aleksanteri KeisalaDecision, 2–1Mehmet Ali Islioğlu

; Points
RankWrestlerNationStartEarnedTotal
1000
2101
2101
2011
5112
5112
5112
5112
9303
10134
10314
10134
13336
14336
14336
14336
14336
14336
14336
14336

Round 3

; Bouts
WinnerNationVictory TypeLoserNation
Per BerlinDecision, 3–0Anton Mackowiak
William SmithDecision, 3–0Alberto Longarella
Vladislav SekalFallMohamed Hassan Moussa
Tsugio YamazakiDecision, 2–1Cyril Martin
Mehmet Ali IslioğluDecision, 3–0Jean-Baptiste Leclerc
Abdollah MojtabaviDecision, 3–0Bev Scott
Aleksanteri KeisalaByeN/AN/A

; Points
RankWrestlerNationStartEarnedTotal
1112
1112
3213
3033
3303
3213
7404
7134
9415
9235
9235
12437
13639

Round 4

; Bouts
WinnerNationVictory TypeLoserNation
Per BerlinDecision, 3–0Aleksanteri Keisala
Alberto LongarellaDecision, 2–1Vladislav Sekal
William SmithFallMohamed Hassan Moussa
Abdollah MojtabaviDecision, 3–0Tsugio Yamazaki

; Points
RankWrestlerNationStartEarnedTotal
1202
2213
3314
4415
5336
5336
5336
8437

Medal rounds

None of the medalists had faced each other, so each wrestled the other two. Each won a bout and lost a bout, so bad points were used to break the three-way 1–1 tie. Smith had won two bouts by fall and two by decision coming into the medal round, leading at 2 points. Berlin had taken only one bout by fall and three by decision before the medal round, coming in at second place with 3 points. All four of Mojtabavi's pre-medal round wins had been by decision, so he had 4 points and came in at third place. Each wrestler earned 4 points in the medal rounds, so their rank order did not change. Smith took gold, Berlin silver, and Mojtabavi bronze.
; Bouts
WinnerNationVictory TypeLoserNation
Per BerlinDecision, 3–0William Smith
Abdollah MojtabaviDecision, 3–0Per Berlin
William SmithDecision, 3–0Abdollah Mojtabavi

; Points
RankWrestlerNationStartEarnedTotal
246
347
448