Wrestling at the 1928 Summer Olympics

Thirteen wrestling events were contested at the 1928 Olympics, with seven freestyle and six Greco-Roman classes. The events were held at the Krachtsportgebouw (Power Sports Building) in Amsterdam, which also hosted the boxing and weightlifting compeitions at the 1928 Olympics. The venue was located alongside the main Olympic Stadium. Finland was the dominant nation in 1928, winning nine Olympic medals, three of each color. Sweden also won three events, with Estonia winning two.

The freestyle classes were conducted as single-elimination tournaments with the silver and bronze medals decided by Bergvall-style second- and third-place tournaments. One innovation in scoring occurred in 1928 with the introduction of “bad points”, or “negative points” for Greco-Roman classes. This would remain the standard method of scoring the Olympic wrestling tournaments through 1988. In this method, wrestlers accumulate bad points for anything other than a win by fall. The scoring would change slightly over the years, but in 1928, a win by decision cost a wrestler 1 bad point, while a loss, by fall or decision, brought 3 bad points. Once a wrestler had received 5 or more bad points, he was eliminated from the tournament. In the early rounds, this scoring system was effectively a double-elimination system.