Welterweight, Freestyle (≤72 kg), Men

Finland’s Eino Leino had won a gold medal in freestyle middleweight at the 1920 Olympics, but had now dropped down to welterweight and was favored. However, in the semi-finals Leino was decisioned by Swiss Hermann Gehri, who had no international credentials. Gehri then defeated American Guy Lookabaugh for the gold medal.

Leino went into the second-place Bergvall tournament, defeating Lookabaugh in the first match, and then decisioning another unknown American, William Johnson, to win the silver medal. Otto Müller, a Swiss teammate of Gehri’s, had lost his first-round match to Lookabaugh, but in the third-place tournament defeated Johnson in the final match to take the bronze medal. This was the only international tournament known for Müller, but Gehri came back in 1930 to win a European Championship.