Heavyweight, Freestyle (≤96 kg), Men

Russia’s Khadzhimurat Gatsalov was the defending gold medalist and had won the last three World Championships, but he was not chosen for the Russian team in 2008, after losing a trials match against Sharvani Muradov, who had won the 2007 European Championship. Muradov made it to the final, where he faced Kazakh Taymuraz Tigiyev, defeating him in straight periods, as Tigiyev could not score off Muradov. The bronze medals went to Georgian Giorgi Gogshelidze, 2008 European Champion and 2007 World runner-up, and Azerbaijani Xetaq Qazyumov. Oddly, in 2012 at London Gogshelidze and Qazyumov would repeat as the bronze medalists in this class.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

In October 2016, Taymuraz Tigiyev (KAZ) was revealed to have a positive test for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), and was disqualified, losing his silver medal. Georgian Giorgi Gogshelidze was upgraded to a silver medal, while Cuban Michel Batista received the bronze medal. Tigiyev’s brother, Soslan Tigiyev, who competed for Uzbekistan, had also originally won a bronze medal in 74 kg freestyle, but was also disqualified in October 2016 for turinabol.