Greek Wrestling Essay

Wrestling is a contact sport which includes two competitors fighting against each other by holding the rival in special positions and throwing them to the ground. Wrestling has been around for thousands of years. Wrestling is considered the oldest competitive sport by many and made its first appearance in 708 B.C at the Ancient Olympic Games. Today there are more than 1000 different styles of wrestling. There are unique forms of wrestling that are found in various countries throughout the world (Lancaster, 2001).
Wrestling may be much older than we know, but there are cave drawings that date back to 3000 B.C. in the Sumero-Akkadian civilization and to 2400 B.C. in ancient Egypt (Terry, 2017). Wrestling was known as a science and a divine art in Greece. It was first developed by ancient Greeks as a way of training and exercise for their soldiers and young men. Greek wrestling was similar to freestyle wrestling (modern), where the competitor who first threw the opponent or brought them down on their back, knees, chest, hips or elbows three times was proclaimed the winner.
Wrestling was very popular amongst the ancient Romans. However the Romans adapted the Greeks wrestling style and removed most of the brutality, which changed the rules to
Greco-Roman wrestlers first competed in the modern Olympic games in Athens in 1896 (Château, 2018). The first champion to win gold at the 1896's Olympic games for wrestling was Carl Schuhmann. Carl represented Germany and also won three other medals for Gymnastics, Athletics and weightlifting. With Carl’s four gold medals hed was noticed as the most successful athlete of the first Olympic Games of the modern era (Chang,