The men's freestyle bantamweight competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London took place from 29 July to 31 July at the Empress Hall, Earls Court Exhibition Centre. Nations were limited to one competitor. Bantamweight was the second-lightest category, including wrestlers weighing .
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, with the slight modification introduced in 1936. 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 if the loss was by fall or unanimous decision and 2 points if the decision was 2-1 (this was the modification from prior years, where all losses were 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.
Hafez Shehata is officially listed as part of the tie for 5th place despite having 6 points to the other 5th place finishers' 5 points.
Kouyos took the bronze over Trimpont "based on more wins." Both finished with 7 points and had not faced each other. Kouyos was 3âÂÂ2 while Trimpont was only 2âÂÂ2 after receiving a second-round bye.
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