Rio Olympics to have new women`s wrestling categories

Geneva: The wrestling world`s governing body, FILA, announced here Tuesday that two weight categories will be added in the women`s section in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The two new categories will replace a weight class in men`s freestyle and Greco-Roman section, reports Xinhua. This change, going into effect in 2014, will ensure a 6-6-6 split among the three disciplines. Now the light classes in men`s freestyle will be 57 and 65 kilograms instead of 55kg, 60kg and 66kg while in Greco-Roman, the two light classes are now 59kg and 66kg rather than 55kg, 60kg and 66kg as in the London Olympics. Freestyle middleweight will remain 74kg, followed by 86, 97 and 125kg for heavyweights. Greco-Roman wrestlers will also compete at 75, 85, 98 and 130kg. Women`s freestyle was introduced for the 2004 Olympics and competed at 48, 55, 63 and 72kg in London last summer. They will wrestle at 48, 53, 58, 63, 69 and 75kg in the 2016 Games. Wrestling was dropped from the list of Olympic core sports in February but was reinstated in September after changes intended to modernize wrestling.