Wrestling at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's freestyle welterweight

The men's freestyle welterweight competition at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki took place from 20 July to 23 July at Messuhalli. Nations were limited to one competitor.

Competition format
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, removing the slight modification introduced in 1936 and used until 1948 (which had a reduced penalty for a loss by 2–1 decision). 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. 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. This elimination continued until the medal rounds, which began when 3 wrestlers remained. These 3 wrestlers each faced each other in a round-robin medal round (with earlier results counting, if any had wrestled another before); record within the medal round determined medals, with bad points breaking ties.

Round 1

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 2
It is unclear why Leclerc was not eliminated but instead continued on to round 3.


 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 3

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 4

 * Bouts


 * Points

Medal rounds
None of the medalists had faced each other, so each wrestled the other two. Each won a bout and lost a bout, so bad points were used to break the three-way 1–1 tie. Smith had won two bouts by fall and two by decision coming into the medal round, leading at 2 points. Berlin had taken only one bout by fall and three by decision before the medal round, coming in at second place with 3 points. All four of Mojtabavi's pre-medal round wins had been by decision, so he had 4 points and came in at third place. Each wrestler earned 4 points in the medal rounds (1 win by decision, 1 loss), so their rank order did not change. Smith took gold, Berlin silver, and Mojtabavi bronze.


 * Bouts


 * Points