Super-Heavyweight, Freestyle (≤130 kg), Men

The last decade had seen this class dominated by American Bruce Baumgartner, gold medalist in 1984 and 1992, and Soviet Georgian Davit Gobejishvili, the 1988 Olympic Champion. Baumgartner was back and had won the 1993 and 1995 World Championships, but Gobejishvili had retired after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Barcelona Olympics. Baumgartner’s hope of a third gold medal went awry in round two when he was beaten by Russian Andrey Shumilin. The final came down to Turkey’s Mahmut Demir, the 1994 World Champion and winner of three of the last four Europeans, who defeated Shumilin in the semi-finals, and Belarussian Aleksey Medvedev, bronze medalist at the 1994 Worlds. Demir won the gold with a comfortable 3-0 victory. Baumgartner and Shumilin both came through the losers’ table to meet again for the bronze medal. This match was much closer, as they tied 1-1 after overtime, with Baumgartner getting the decision, and the bronze medal, on officials’ decision. This made Baumgartner only the sixth wrestler, to that time, to win four Olympic medals (done eight times through 2012), but still trailing the five won by German Wilfried Dietrich.