OLYMPIC STYLES
Greco-Roman
Greco-Roman wrestling is a combat sport which confronts two male competitors who try to gain control over their opponent through the use of throws, locks, and clinching techniques. The holds can only be execuded by means of the upper body, with the ultimate goal of pinning the opponent’s shoulders to the mat. If a wrestler manages to do so, victory by “fall” is proclaimed, otherwise, the match pursues until the end of the regular time and the winner is decided according to the technical points scored.
Wrestling was introduced to the programme of the ancient Olympic Games in 708 BC.
Except from the Paris Olympic in 1900, Greco-Roman has been part of the programme of all modern Olymic Games since its introduction in 1896.
Freestyle
Freestyle wrestling is a combat sport which confronts two competitors who try to gain control over their opponent through the use of throws, locks, leg trips, and clinching techniques. Contrary to Greco-Roman which only allows the use of the upper body, all Freestyle holds can involve the legs in order to ultimately pin the the opponent’s shoulders to the mat. If a wrestler manages to do so, victory by “fall” is proclaimed, otherwise, the match pursues until the end of the regular time and the winner is decided according to the technical points scored.
Wrestling was introduced to the programme of the ancient Olympic Games in 708 BC.
Except from the Stockholm Olympics in 1912, Freestyle has been part of the programme of all modern Olymic Games since its introdcution in 1904.
Women’s Wrestling
Women’s wrestling is a combat sport which confronts two female competitors who try to gain control over their opponent through the use of throws, locks, leg trips, and clinching techniques. Similarly to Freestyle wrestling, all holds can involve the legs in order to ultimately pin the the opponent’s shoulders to the mat. If a wrestler manages to do so, victory by “fall” is proclaimed, otherwise, the match pursues until the end of the regular time and the winner is decided according to the technical points scored.
Women’s wrestling was introduced to the programme of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens with 4 weight categories following the reduction of the male categories’ number.
ASSOCIATED STYLES
Grappling
Grappling is a style of Wrestling that combine technique originated in different sports such as Freestyle Wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Luta Livre Brasileira, Catch Wrestling, Judo, Sambo, and the aim of the sport consist in taking down and control the opponent on the ground and submit him using chokes and locks.
Grappling, allowing technique and holds from all the wrestling sports, has the most permissive rules set amongs them. Being most of the fight spent on the ground, Grappling can be considered as one of the safest wrestling sport to practice.
Grappling, of all the modern wrestling styles, is the closest to Ancient Greek wrestling or Pále (πάλη), that was practiced in the old Olympic Games. Grappling is divided in 2 styles: Grappling No-Gi, where athletes wear shorts and a compression shirt called rashguard , and Grappling Gi, where athletes wear a kimono. For its peculiarity of teaching to neutralize an opponent without hurting him, it is now used in many countries for self defense training military and police force .
Pankration
Pankration, from the Greek words “Pan” and “Kratos” meaning “the one who controls everything”, is a world heritage martial art with the unique distinction of being the only martial sport in existence that can legitimately trace its roots to the ancient Olympic Games from 648 BC to 393 AD. Today, pankration is developed by FILA as a mild form of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), which forbids striking to the head. Pankration is practised both by men and women, according to the same rules.
In addition to individual competition, pankration includes two forms of choreographic team events that can be showcased with or without weapons. “Palaismata” takes place between two athletes and aims at assessing their level of knowledge while “Polydamas” takes place between 1 defendant and 3 attackers to simulate a dangerous situation to be overcome by the athlete. Pankration is an efficient form of self-defence that can be used for police and security training.
Pankration was introduced to the programme of the SportAccord World Combat Games in 2010 with 3 male categories.
Belt Wrestling Alysh
The word “Alysh” meaning “fighting to determine the strongest” finds its roots in ancient Turkish and was chosen by the International Federation of Wrestling on Belts to embody the bringing together of all belt wrestling styles practised throughout the world.
The belt wrestling matches take place over a period of 5 minutes for men and 4 minutes for women. The competitors wear white trousers and either a blue or a green jacket held tight by a flexible red belt. While holding each other’s belt, they try to throw their opponent to the mat. The technical points are awarded according to the amplitude of the throws: 1 point if the opponent lands on a knee or buttocks, 2 points if the opponent lends sideways or on a hip, and 6 points if the opponent lends on the back. The first competitor who scores 6 points wins the match. The rules adopted are purposely simple so that all national belt wrestling styles can express themselves within a generic form of the discipline.
Belt wrestling was introduced to the programme of the SportAccord World Combat Games in 2010 with 1 male category.
Pahlavani Wrestling
The origin of “ Pahlavani wrestling “ goes back to ancient Persia and was said to have been practiced by mythological Iranian heroes in battles .in fact the Pahlavani wrestling originally used to train warriors. It combines martial arts and wrestling technics , calisthenics, strength training and epic music. It recognized by UNESCO as among the world’s longest-running forms of sport.
The person who ever was well trained and defeat others would called Pahlavan or hero. The Pahlvani heros are popular among people .
This style of wrestling confront two competitors who try to take control over each other by throwing him back on his shoulder.
In Pahlavani wrestling, wrestlers wear a pants which extends from waist to below of his knees that contains a belt to hold the pants.
In this style wrestler is allowed to use or grab pants or belt as a grip. Also the wrestler can use legs, waist, clinch, leg trips and more likely lift and throw.
Beach Wrestling
Beach Wrestling was codified by the international federation for wrestling during the 2004 Congress in Athens in order to bring together all the different traditional wrestling styles practiced on sand and to make them more popular worldwide. It also aims at promoting the values of a fun, secure, accessible, and eco-friendly sport. Beach Wrestling is practised in swimming suit within a sand circle of 7m and consists of very simple rules: to win the match, the wrestler needs to score three points by using these following actions: bring his opponent to the ground (1 point), push him out of the circle (1 point) or expose his opponent’s shoulders on the ground during a takedown (2 points).
Beach Wrestling was introduced to the programme of the first Youth Olympic Games that took place in Singapre in 2010 and Beach Wrestling will be part of the schedule during the next World Beach Games organised by SportAccord.
Originally posted on United World Wrestling
