The ancient Greek Olympics put wrestling on the map.  Wrestling made it's Olympic debut in the Games of 708 B.C. It was apparently a much more violent, punishing sport in those early days, when it had closer ties to military training. Wrestling spread through the Roman world, as well as other early civilizations in India, China, Japan and throughout the Middle East.

Wrestling died out with the Olympic Games in the Dark Ages, but it was natural that when organizers of the 1896 Olympics searched for sports with roots  in antiquity, they looked to wrestling. It was the showpiece event of those Olympics, much as the 100-metre final is in the present day Games.

Modern Greco-Roman wrestling was first mad popular in France. At the same time, a less restrictive brand of wrestling made inroads in the Western world. Unlike Greco-Roman wrestlers, who tried to throw or otherwise force their opponents to the mat with holds around the upper body, freestyle wrestlers had more options. They could trip their opponents, grab and their legs and use their own legs in holds and take-downs. Fittingly, freestyle wrestling also became known as “catch as catch can” and proved to be popular entertainment in the 19th Century.

And here’s where the history gets a little confusing. Despite being a revival of the Olympic tradition, it seems the wrestling showcased at the 1896 Games was closer to freestyle than classical Greco-Roman. The toast of the 1896 competition was Germany’s Carl Schumann in the heavyweight class – not so much for his wrestling victory, but for the fact that he was also a gold medalist in gymnastics.

After a hiatus in 1900, wrestling was back as freestyle wrestling in 1904. Four years later, Olympic organizers resurrected Greco-Roman wrestling, in which use of the legs is forbidden, a style they believed to be a direct carryover from the Greek and Roman wrestlers of old.