Wrestling at the 2012 Summer Olympics

The wrestling events at the 2012 Summer Olympics were held at the ExCeL on the Royal Victoria Dock in London. The site also hosted boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, weightlifting, and table tennis, making it one of the busiest venues of the Games. The format for the tournament remained the same as it had since 2004, with fourteen events for men, seven each in Greco-Roman and Freestyle, and four for women, all in freestyle.

As in 2008, Russia was the most successful nation in wrestling, winning 11 medals total, four of which were gold. This meant that the Russians were actually somewhat less dominant in 2012, as they had won the same number of medals in Beijing, but six of them had been gold. Japan was the runner-up in the medal table, winning six podium spots, four of which were first, and nearly sweeping the women’s events, with three of the four available gold medals. Their fourth gold victory came from Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu in the men’s welterweight freestyle event, which was their first in a men’s competition since 1988. Another notable result was Sushil Kumar’s silver medal in the same event, which marked the first time that an Indian competitor had reached the finals of a wrestling event.