The sport of wrestling dates all the way back to ancient times, where there were tales of oiled bodies fighting in the sand in the Ancient Olympics.
Thusly, when the Modern Olympics resumed in Athens in 1896, wrestling became the focus of the Games. Wrestling's original Olympic style -- Greco-Roman -- was derived from ancient Greek and Roman wrestling.
While wrestling disappeared from the slate for the 1900 Paris games, it returned eight years later in St. Louis where officials added a second category to the wrestling slate called freestyle -- a much less restrictive form of wrestling commonly known as "catch as you can." This form of wrestling became popular at 19th-century festivals in Britain and the United States.
Women have also become a factor in wrestling in the modern era, but not yet on the Olympic level.