Overview
The men's freestyle lightweight competition at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome took place from 1 to 6 September at the Basilica of Maxentius. Nations were limited to one competitor. Lightweight was the fourth-lightest category, including wrestlers weighing .
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, though adjusted the point values slightly. Wins by fall continued to be worth 0 points and wins by decision continued to be worth 1 point. Losses by fall, however, were now worth 4 points (up from 3). Losses by decision were worth 3 points (consistent with most prior years, though in some losses by split decision had been worth only 2 points). Ties were now allowed, worth 2 points for each wrestler. The elimination threshold was also increased from 5 points to 6 points.
The medal round concept, used in 1952 and 1956 requiring a round-robin amongst the medalists even if one or more finished a round with enough points for elimination, was used only if exactly three wrestlers remained after a round—if two competitors remained, they faced off head-to-head; if only one, he was the gold medalist.
Round 6
Wilson's victory over Syniavskiy in round 4 turned out to be the gold medal winning match, as those two wrestlers were the only ones left with fewer than 6 points at the end of round 6. They each had 5 points, so the tie was broken by head-to-head results. (Bong and Tajiki had not faced each other, and ties for 4th or worse place were not broken unless head-to-head results were already achieved, so they shared 4th place.) ; Bouts ; Points