Lightweight (≤68 kilograms), Men

The favorite was Takaehide Nakatani, for no other reason than that he was the Japanese entrant. Nakatani was in the second pool and won his two matches in under three minutes of total wrestling. American Paul Maruyama had won the first pool quite easily and was expected to challenge Nakatani, based on his performance. But in the quarter-finals, Nakatani threw Maruyam for ippon in only 24 seconds. In the semi-final, Nakatani faced the Soviet Oleg Stepanov who had fought him to a decision only the year before. But in Tokyo, Nakatani threw Stepanov twice for waza-ari, winning in 4:25. The other semi-final was won by the Swiss, Eric Hänni. The final was unusual. Nakatani gained a waza-ari early in the match. After one minute of combat, Nakatani pulled Hänni off his feet with de-ashi-barai, but it was ignored by the referee. Suddenly the judges stopped the contest, and began a long discussion with the referee. While the crowd grew restless, suddenly the referee declared another waza-ari for the de-ashi-barai and gave the decision to Nakatani.