| When the modern Olympic Games began in Athens in 1896
wrestling was one of the sports competed, like the other events the
organisation was amateurish and the standard was very poor. The style
of wrestling chosen was Greco-Roman which despite its grandiose title
owes nothing to Greece or Rome but everything to France. |
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| The two Olympic styles are folk styles, which have been
greatly technically developed since their Olympic inception. The senior
style, Greco-Roman, is one of a family of Mediterranean styles, which
have existed in La Provençe (South East France) since antiquity
and was first formally and legally codified in 1848 by a lawyer called
Innocent Truquettil. |
| Greco-Roman was initially called in French la luttes
à mains platte (open handed wrestling) and technical development
began in the ‘athletes’ cafés’ of Lyon and
Bordeaux. About 1860 it was sometimes referred to as la lutte Romaine
(Roman wrestling) then later as la lutte Grecque (Greek wrestling).
Eventually the two names were joined together and it became generally
known as Graeco-Roman/Greco-Roman, though as late as 1910 it was still
frequently referred to in France as la lutte à mains platte
or la lutte Francais (French Wrestling). The myth of Classicism still
lingers in some countries particularly those of the former Soviet
Union where the sport is often called Clasiskaya Borba or Classical
wrestling. |
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Pierre de Fridi, Baron de Coubertin founder of the modern
Olympic Games chose Greco-Roman for the first Olympic Games for several
reasons, first because of the name which was chosen because the founders
in 1848 genuinely believed that it was the type of wrestling described
by Homer in the Iliad (circa 1200 BC). The second reason was because
at that time it was the most popular spectator sport in Europe, excluding
Britain where Catch-as-catch-can was incredibly popular. |
| During the 19th century many wrestlers claimed to be
world champion, particularly in the USA; in fact anybody could claim
to be ‘World Champion’ or “undefeated for XXX number
of years,” much the same as happens in modern show wrestling.
Even in the 21st century there are people who uncritically accept
these preposterous 19th and early 20th century claims, but the facts
are these; the first open international tournament
in Greco-Roman was an amateur tournament, the 1896 Olympic
Games, and the reason for the low standard was that all the best wrestlers
were professional. |
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There were only five competitors and Carl Schumann of Berlin (Germany)
won the honour of being the first Olympic Champion of the modern era,
he had already won three gold medals for gymnastics. Georgios Tsitas
of Greece a renowned Pale wrestler, (Greek traditional wrestling)
won the second prize and his countryman Stephanos Christopolous placed
third, Launceston Elliot of Great Britain (Scotland) placed fourth
and last was Popavicza of Hungary. Elliot won his place in history
as the first Olympic weightlifting champion but all his ponderous
bulk and power were no match against the skill and agility of the
tiny German who defeated him in the first round. |
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The first tournament claiming to be a
World Championship was held in Brussels, Belgium in 1897;
It had 118 competitors and was won by Maurice Gambier of Bordeaux,
France who only weighed 87 kgs. Constant le Boucher of Belgium won
the first French championship, which was held in the outdoor stadium
of Roubaix, near Paris in 1898. |
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| George Hackenschmidt (1878/1968) of Estonia, established
a unique record by winning the first European wrestling championship
which was held in Vienna the capital of Austria in August 1897. |
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French historians often discount World Championships from this early
period, which were held outside of Paris and they commence their list
of world championships only from 1898. Paul Pons (1864/1915) was the
winner and second was Wladislaw Pitlasinski of Poland, the man who
introduced Greco-Roman into Finland and Scandinavia and wrote the
first textbook on wrestling in Russian. |
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