| | Event type

Bantamweight, Greco-Roman (≤57 kg), Men

Date	19 – 20 July 1996
Status	Olympic
Location	Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia (Hall G)
Participants	20 from 20 countries
Format	Single-elimination tournament with classification rounds for placements.

There were three favorites in this class, with little to help choose between them. The podium at the 1994-95 Worlds had the same three athletes – American Dennis Hall (1995 champion), Kazakh Yury Melnichenko (1994 champion), and Russian Aleksandr Ignatenko (four-times a World medalist but never the champion).

With wrestling’s odd method of not seeding wrestlers, Ignatenko and Melnichenko met in the first round, which resulted in an 11-0 romp for Melnichenko. He continued to win and made it to the final, where he again met Dennis Hall. Melnichenko went up early with a 4-point lift and toss and Hall could not recover, the Kazakh winning gold, 4-1. This made him the first athlete to win a gold medal for independent Kazakhstan.

Pos	Number	Competitor	NOC	CP	TP
1	6	Yury Melnichenko	KAZ	–	–	Gold
2	16	Dennis Hall	USA	–	–	Silver
3	20	Sheng Zetian	CHN	–	–	Bronze
4	3	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR	–	–
5	10	Rifat Yildiz	GER	–	–
6	11	Luis Sarmiento	CUB	–	–
7	8	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE	–	–
8	13	Kenkichi Nishimi	JPN	–	–
9	17	Aigars Jansons	LAT	8	18
10	19	Vilayət Ağayev	AZE	7	15
11	14	Park Chi-Ho	KOR	6	21
12	4	Remigijus Šukevičius	LTU	6	17
13	2	Aghasi Manukyan	ARM	4	6
14	9	Armando Fernández	MEX	3	7
15	7	Marian Sandu	ROU	3	3
16	18	Stanisław Pawłowski	POL	2	6
17	15	Şeref Eroğlu	TUR	1	7
18	12	David Maia	POR	1	3
19	5	Aleksandr Ignatenko	RUS	1	2
20	1	Nabil Salhi	TUN	0	0

Round One

Date	19 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	19 Jul	Hall G	Aghasi Manukyan	ARM	Decision (4-0) (5:00)	Nabil Salhi	TUN
Match #2	19 Jul	Hall G	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR	Decision (5-1) (5:00)	Remigijus Šukevičius	LTU
Match #3	19 Jul	Hall G	Yury Melnichenko	KAZ	Grand superiority (11-0) (2:29)	Aleksandr Ignatenko	RUS
Match #4	19 Jul	Hall G	Marian Sandu	ROU	Decision (3-2) (5:00)	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE
Match #5	19 Jul	Hall G	Rifat Yildiz	GER	Grand superiority (12-0) (1:52)	Armando Fernández	MEX
Match #6	19 Jul	Hall G	Luis Sarmiento	CUB	Decision (5-0) (5:00)	David Maia	POR
Match #7	19 Jul	Hall G	Park Chi-Ho	KOR	Grand superiority (17-6) (3:58)	Kenkichi Nishimi	JPN
Match #8	19 Jul	Hall G	Dennis Hall	USA	Decision (3-0) (7:53)	Şeref Eroğlu	TUR
Match #9	19 Jul	Hall G	Aigars Jansons	LAT	Decision (4-3) (5:00)	Stanisław Pawłowski	POL
Match #10	19 Jul	Hall G	Sheng Zetian	CHN	Decision (5-4) (5:00)	Vilayət Ağayev	AZE

Round Two

Date	19 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	19 Jul	Hall G	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR	Grand superiority (11-0) (2:02)	Aghasi Manukyan	ARM
Match #2	19 Jul	Hall G	Yury Melnichenko	KAZ	Decision (4-0) (6:10)	Marian Sandu	ROU
Match #3	19 Jul	Hall G	Rifat Yildiz	GER	Decision (4-1) (5:00)	Luis Sarmiento	CUB
Match #4	19 Jul	Hall G	Dennis Hall	USA	Decision (3-2) (5:47)	Park Chi-Ho	KOR
Match #5	19 Jul	Hall G	Sheng Zetian	CHN	Decision (7-1) (5:00)	Aigars Jansons	LAT

Quarter-Finals

Date	20 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	20 Jul	Hall G	Yury Melnichenko	KAZ	Decision (8-1) (5:00)	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR
Match #2	20 Jul	Hall G	Rifat Yildiz	GER
Match #3	20 Jul	Hall G	Dennis Hall	USA
Match #4	20 Jul	Hall G	Sheng Zetian	CHN

Semi-Finals

Date	20 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	20 Jul	Hall G	Yury Melnichenko	KAZ	Decision (3-0) (5:00)	Rifat Yildiz	GER
Match #2	20 Jul	Hall G	Dennis Hall	USA	Decision (1-0) (8:00)	Sheng Zetian	CHN

Final Round

Date	20 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match 1/2	20 Jul	Hall G	Yury Melnichenko	KAZ	Decision (4-1) (5:00)	Dennis Hall	USA
Match 3/4	20 Jul	Hall G	Sheng Zetian	CHN	Decision (4-0) (6:49)	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR
Match 5/6	20 Jul	Hall G	Rifat Yildiz	GER	Default (0-0) (0:32)	Luis Sarmiento	CUB
Match 7/8	20 Jul	Hall G	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE	Decision (5-4) (5:00)	Kenkichi Nishimi	JPN

Classification Round Two

Date	19 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	19 Jul	Hall G	Remigijus Šukevičius	LTU	Grand superiority (11-0) (1:27)	Nabil Salhi	TUN
Match #2	19 Jul	Hall G	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE	Decision (3-2) (5:00)	Aleksandr Ignatenko	RUS
Match #3	19 Jul	Hall G	Armando Fernández	MEX	Decision (7-3) (5:00)	David Maia	POR
Match #4	19 Jul	Hall G	Kenkichi Nishimi	JPN	Decision (8-7) (5:00)	Şeref Eroğlu	TUR
Match #5	19 Jul	Hall G	Vilayət Ağayev	AZE	Decision (4-3) (5:00)	Stanisław Pawłowski	POL

Classification Round Three

Date	19 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	19 Jul	Hall G	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE	Decision (6-5) (5:00)	Remigijus Šukevičius	LTU
Match #2	19 Jul	Hall G	Kenkichi Nishimi	JPN	Grand superiority (12-0) (1:18)	Armando Fernández	MEX
Match #3	19 Jul	Hall G	Vilayət Ağayev	AZE	Decision (7-2) (5:00)	Aghasi Manukyan	ARM
Match #4	19 Jul	Hall G	Luis Sarmiento	CUB	Decision (7-0) (5:00)	Marian Sandu	ROU
Match #5	19 Jul	Hall G	Aigars Jansons	LAT	Decision (9-2) (5:00)	Park Chi-Ho	KOR

Classification Round Four

Date	20 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	20 Jul	Hall G	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE	Decision (4-2) (5:00)	Kenkichi Nishimi	JPN
Match #2	20 Jul	Hall G	Luis Sarmiento	CUB	Decision (1-0) (8:00)	Vilayət Ağayev	AZE
Match #3	20 Jul	Hall G	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR	Decision (9-4) (5:00)	Aigars Jansons	LAT

Classification Round Five

Date	20 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	20 Jul	Hall G	Luis Sarmiento	CUB	Decision (4-2) (5:00)	Sarkis Elgkian	GRE
Match #2	20 Jul	Hall G	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR

Classification Round Six

Date	20 July 1996

Match	Date/Time	Location	Competitor	NOC	Result	Competitor	NOC
Match #1	20 Jul	Hall G	Ruslan Khakymov	UKR	Decision (3-2) (7:16)	Rifat Yildiz	GER
Match #2	20 Jul	Hall G	Sheng Zetian	CHN	Decision (8-2) (5:00)	Luis Sarmiento	CUB