Wrestling at the 1948 Summer Olympics – Men's freestyle flyweight

The men's freestyle flyweight competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London took place from 29 July to 31 July at the Empress Hall, Earls Court Exhibition Centre. Nations were limited to one competitor.

This freestyle wrestling competition continued to use the "bad points" elimination system introduced at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Greco-Roman and at the 1932 Summer Olympics for freestyle wrestling, with the slight modification introduced in 1936. Each round featured all wrestlers pairing off and wrestling one bout (with one wrestler having a bye if there were an odd number). The loser received 3 points if the loss was by fall or unanimous decision and 2 points if the decision was 2-1 (this was the modification from prior years, where all losses were 3 points). The winner received 1 point if the win was by decision and 0 points if the win was by fall. At the end of each round, any wrestler with at least 5 points was eliminated.

Round 1

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 2

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 3

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 4

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 5
By the fifth round, three wrestlers were left. Viitala had already defeated Balamir, in round 1, and Balamir had previously defeated Johansson, in round 3. Thus, the only possible match left was Viitala against Johansson. Viitala won to secure the gold medal, with Balamir receiving silver (despite not reaching 5 points) due to the previous head-to-head result against Viitala.


 * Bouts


 * Points