The men's Greco-Roman light heavyweight was a Greco-Roman wrestling event held as part of the Wrestling at the 1956 Summer Olympics programme. It was the tenth appearance of the event. Light heavyweight was the second-heaviest category, including wrestlers weighing .
Competition format
This Greco-Roman 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, as modified in 1952 (adding medal rounds and making all losses worth 3 points—from 1936 to 1948 losses by split decision only cost 2). Each round featured all wrestlers pairing off and wrestling one bout (with one wrestler having a bye if there were an odd number). 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 (with earlier results counting, if any had wrestled another before); record within the medal round determined medals, with bad points breaking ties.
Results Source: Official results
Round 1
Bouts
Winner Nation Victory Type Loser Nation Adil Atan Decision, 2–1 Gyula Kovács Valentin Nikolayev Decision, 3–0 Petko Sirakov Dale O. Thomas Fall Eugen Wiesberger Jr. Karl-Erik Nilsson Decision, 3–0 Veikko Lahti Bob Steckle Decision, 2–1 Victor Mucha
Points
Rank Wrestler Nation Start Earned Total 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 1 6 0 3 3 6 0 3 3 6 0 3 3 6 0 3 3 6 0 3 3
Round 2
Atan withdrew due to injury after his bout.
Bouts
Winner Nation Victory Type Loser Nation Petko Sirakov Decision, 2–1 Adil Atan Valentin Nikolayev Decision, 3–0 Gyula Kovács Veikko Lahti Fall Dale O. Thomas Eugen Wiesberger Jr. Fall Victor Mucha Karl-Erik Nilsson Fall Bob Steckle
Points
Rank Wrestler Nation Start Earned Total 1 1 0 1 2 1 1 2 3 3 0 3 3 0 3 3 3 3 0 3 6 3 1 4 6 1 3 4 8 1 3 4* 9 3 3 6 9 3 3 6
Round 3
Bouts
Winner Nation Victory Type Loser Nation Petko Sirakov Fall Dale O. Thomas Valentin Nikolayev Decision, 3–0 Veikko Lahti Karl-Erik Nilsson Decision, 3–0 Eugen Wiesberger Jr. Bob Steckle Bye N/A N/A
Points
Rank Wrestler Nation Start Earned Total 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 3 3 4 0 4 3 4 0 4 5 3 3 6 6 3 3 6 7 3 3 6
Round 4
Bouts
Winner Nation Victory Type Loser Nation Petko Sirakov Fall Bob Steckle Valentin Nikolayev Decision, 3–0 Karl-Erik Nilsson
Points
Rank Wrestler Nation Start Earned Total 1 3 1 4 1 4 0 4 3 2 3 5 4 4 3 7
Medal rounds
Nikolayev's victories over Sirakov in round 1 and over Nilsson in round 4 counted for the medal round, giving him the gold medal at 2–0 against the other medalists. Sirakov defeated Nilsson in a de facto silver medal bout.
Bouts
Winner Nation Victory Type Loser Nation Petko Sirakov Decision, 3–0 Karl-Erik Nilsson
Points
Rank Wrestler Nation Wins Losses 2 0 1 1 0 2
References
General