Wrestling at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Men's freestyle lightweight

The men's freestyle lightweight competition at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome took place from 1 to 6 September at the Basilica of Maxentius. 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, though adjusted the point values slightly. Wins by fall continued to be worth 0 points and wins by decision continued to be worth 1 point. Losses by fall, however, were now worth 4 points (up from 3). Losses by decision were worth 3 points (consistent with most prior years, though in some losses by split decision had been worth only 2 points). Ties were now allowed, worth 2 points for each wrestler. The elimination threshold was also increased from 5 points to 6 points. The medal round concept, used in 1952 and 1956 requiring a round-robin amongst the medalists even if one or more finished a round with enough points for elimination, was used only if exactly three wrestlers remained after a round—if two competitors remained, they faced off head-to-head; if only one, he was the gold medalist.

Round 1

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 2

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 3

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 4

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 5

 * Bouts


 * Points

Round 6
Wilson's victory over Syniavskiy in round 4 turned out to be the gold medal winning match, as those two wrestlers were the only ones left with fewer than 6 points at the end of round 6. They each had 5 points, so the tie was broken by head-to-head results. (Bong and Tajiki had not faced each other, and ties for 4th or worse place were not broken unless head-to-head results were already achieved, so they shared 4th place.)


 * Bouts


 * Points