Guide
Women's wrestling, without the preface
Freestyle rules. Its own Olympic weights. A history that no longer needs to be explained before the first score.
Women's wrestling at the world championships and the Olympics is freestyle. Legs are legal. Throws score. The clock is the same two periods of three minutes. What is not the same is the history. A shorter time on the Olympic programme. A different map of who has been winning. A generation of champions who made the preface unnecessary.
Olympic weights are 50, 53, 57, 62, 68 and 76 kilograms. Worlds add 55, 59, 65 and 72. The 57 kilogram class has been, for several cycles, the most crowded room. Famous names do not get an easy early round. There is a desk piece on that. This page is the frame.
Names worth knowing, as context
Saori Yoshida's thirteen world titles and three Olympic golds. Helen Maroulis in the Rio final. Tamyra Mensah-Stock in Tokyo at 68. Amit Elor in Paris at the same weight, the youngest American wrestler to win Olympic gold. Yui Susaki's run at 50, and the Paris loss that proved a run can be solved. These are not a complete history. They are enough to stop a new viewer treating the session as an exhibition.
The wrestling is not a softer freestyle. Scrambles run long. A one-point step-out still decides finals. If you are new to the sport, start here as readily as with the men's cards. The scoring guide applies without translation.
NVWF covers women's wrestling as a core section, not as a theme week. The section page is the door. Astana will be edited that way.