Sixteen wrestlers compete in each division. The competition consists of a single-elimination tournament, with a repechage used to determine the winner of two bronze medals. The two finalists will wrestle for the gold and silver medals. Each wrestler losing to one of the two finalists moves into the repechage that culminates in a pair of bronze medal matches featuring the semifinal losers who each face the remaining repechage opponent from their half of the bracket.[2][3]
Similar to the previous Games, 288 wrestling quota places were available through three competition phases for Paris 2024. Each NOC could only qualify one wrestler per weight class. No host country spots will be allocated in wrestling.[3]
The qualification period began at the 2023 World Wrestling Championships, held from the 16 to 24 September in Belgrade, Serbia, where five quota places for each of the eighteen weight categories were awarded to four medalists (gold, silver, and two bronze) along with the champion of a bout between two losers from the bronze-medal matches.[4][5] At the beginning of the 2024 season, four continental qualification tournaments (Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the joint Africa & Oceania) distributed a total of 144 spots to the top two finalists of each continent across eighteen weight categories. The remainder of the total quota were decided at the 2024 World Qualification Tournament, offering three quota places per weight category to the two highest-ranked wrestlers and the champion of a wrestle-off between two bronze medalists.[4][6]