By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY (April 10) -- United World Wrestling has approved a seeding of the top four athletes in each weight category at the 2017 World Championships in Paris. The seeding is based on the results of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio (BRA), the 2016 Senior World Championship in Budapest (HUN) and the 2017 Senior Continental Championships.

The points will be awarded as follows:



*If a weight category only has one bronze medal (by example Nordic System), the athlete ranked in the fourth place will get 7 points.

The number of participants for each event also effects the points calculation. For instance, if at 70 kg, there were 40 participants at the World Championships, the world champion will receive 25 + 40 pts = 65 points. This way, competitions with many participants will award more points than the ones with fewer participants.

An athlete only receives points within the weight class they participated at the Olympic Games, World Championship and the Continental Championship. Seeding is also linked directly to the athlete, not the national federation. If the National Wrestling Federation replaces the concerned athlete, they will lose this position and the conventional drawing-of-lots shall be administered.

Position of the top seed athletes in the bracket

N°1:     He/She will be paired at the first position of the bracket (top of the upper part)
N°2:     He/She will be paired at the last position of the bracket (bottom of the lower part)
N°3:     He/She will be paired at the top of the lower part of the bracket
N°4:     He/She will be paired at the bottom of the upper part of the bracket

If there is a qualification round, the top seeded athletes will be paired last. If the number of athletes oblige the top seeds to participate in the qualification round then it will progress from N°4, N°3, N°2 and then N°1.

Example of a bracket with 17 to 32 athletes:

If the number of registered athletes is between 17 and 28, the top seeds athletes won’t have a qualification round. The bouts of the qualification round will be paired from the bottom to the top of the bracket by avoiding the top seeds.

If 29 athletes are registered, the top seed N°4 will participate in the qualification round.
If 30 athletes are registered, the top seed N°4 and N°3 will participate in the qualification round.
If 31 athletes are registered, the top seeds N°4, N°3 and N°2 will participate in the qualification round.
If 32 athletes are registered, we will have the perfect number and the competition will start from the 1/16 of finals for all the athletes.
This system will be also followed for the bracket with 9 to 16 athletes.

If one or several top seeds athlete(s) is not entered (replaced or not registered), the next top seed will take his place. No other athlete will be able to replace a top seed. Wrestlers shall be paired off in the order of the numbers they drew.

Rankings for all three styles