The Art Of Greco Roman Wrestling

Greco Roman (US) or Graeco-Roman (UK) wrestling is a kind of combat sport in which players use their upper bodies to execute various moves so as to score points and win the match. It was first played in 1896 in Olympic Games and has been played in every summer Olympics since 1908. The wrestlers fight two matches for three-minutes and are scored on the basis of their moves unless one of them pins the other one early. The wrestling differs from freestyle wrestling as it forbids holding below the waist. This restriction causes less throws as the opponent can't take trips or use hooking or grabbing to pin the other down. Greco-Roman has greater prominence of arm drags, bear hugs and headlocks, which we are used to seeing in Freestyle.

It is believed that Greco-Roman wrestling is one of the oldest forms of sport that existed on the planet. There are some ancient cave drawings that suggest competitions like these may have been played as early as 3000 BC.

According to United World Wrestling, Greco-Roman is one of sex main forms of amateur competitive wrestling that is played all over the world. Other five are beach wrestling, freestyle wrestling, belt wrestling, grappling wrestling and traditional/folk wrestling. 

Aleksandr Karelin from Russia is considered to be the greatest wrestler of all time in this style. He has won gold medals in the years 1988,1992 and 1996. He won a silver in 2000.

By: Neha Maheshwari

Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_wrestling