The men's freestyle flyweight competition at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki took place from 20 July to 23 July at Messuhalli. Nations were limited to one competitor.[1]
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, removing the slight modification introduced in 1936 and used until 1948 (which had a reduced penalty for a loss by 2–1 decision). Each round featured all wrestlers pairing off and wrestling one bout (with one wrestler having a bye if there were an odd number). The loser received 3 points. The winner received 1 point if the win was by decision and 0 points if the win was by fall. At the end of each round, any wrestler with at least 5 points was eliminated. This elimination continued until the medal rounds, which began when 3 wrestlers remained. These 3 wrestlers each faced each other in a round-robin medal round (with earlier results counting, if any had wrestled another before); record within the medal round determined medals, with bad points breaking ties.[2][1]
Gemici's victory over Kitano in round 4 and Mollaghasemi's victory over Gemici counted for the medal round. Kitano defeated Mollaghasemi in the medal round, leaving each wrestler at a record of 1–1 against the other medalists. Bad points were used to break this tie, leaving Mollaghasemi with the bronze medal but Gemici and Kitano still tied. Head-to-head results were the next tie-breaker, with Gemici taking the gold medal due to his round 4 win.