The pre-selections were compiled by the UWW Refereeing Commission, led by Germany’s Antonio Silvestri, with the independent group of officials having reviewed the performances of referees across the world in the build-up towards Rio.

With the number of referees having been reduced from 80 at the London 2012 Olympics to 50 for Rio 2016, UWW claim the cutbacks have developed a greater accountability among their officials.

Each of the referees selected are subject to reviews of their on-the-mat performances, while they could also be reclassified depending on standards of officiating.

Azerbaijan’s Hirjan Sharifov, Belarus’ Ihar Brel, Brazil’s Eduardo Goncalves, Bulgaria’s Valentin Guetzov, Canada’s Gary Bird, China’s Xia Zhang, Croatia’s Zvonko Ocic, Germany’s Michael Faller and Uwe Manz, Estonia’s Arodl Peep, France’s Céline Menu, Georgia’s Temo Kazararashvili and Russia’s Charles Villet are among those to make the list of appointed referees.

“The great thing about the selection process was that it worked as designed,” said Stan Dziedzic, UWW vice-president.

“In 2013 the International Olympic Committee asked us to create an independent refereeing commission.

“We did so and are seeing fantastic results from the hard work of Mr Silvestri and the entire refereeing commission.”

Silvestri will also head to Rio 2016, where the chief of referees will be supported by instructors Guillermo Orestes Molina Gonzalez of Cuba, Italy’s Edit Dozsa, Japan’s Osamu Saito, Russia’s Andrei Krikov, Tunisia’s Mohamed Kamel Bouaziz, Turkey’s Halil Ibrahim Cicioglu, the United States’ Zach Errett and Konstantin Mikhaylov of Uzbekistan.

Six supervisors are also set to attend the Games with that list comprising of Finland’s Pertti Vehvilainen, France’s Régine Legleut, Georgia’s Edisher Machaidze, Kazakhstan’s Bakhytzhan Jaxykulov, Morocco’s Noreddine Mochaffaa and Russia’s Sergey Novakovskiy.

With continental championships and Olympic qualification events scheduled to be held in 2016 ahead of the Olympic Games, the Refereeing Commission will be given the opportunity to replace officials who make significant errors during those events.

UWW believe this will help to ensure refereeing at those competitions continues to be at a high standard, while they have also stated that referees must keep their licenses current.

The full list of officials can be found here.