This is the fourteenth appearance of the men's half heavyweight category, debuting in 1972, and it has appeared in every Olympics since then.
Defending champion Aaron Wolf lost to potentially silver medalist Ilia Sulamanidze, later, Wolf got into the repechages and lost to Nikoloz Sherazadishvili, 2020 silver medalist Cho Gu-ham did not qualify, one of the bronze medalists, Jorge Fonseca lost to Aaron Wolf, and Niyaz Ilyasov failed to qualify due to the IOC barred Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) due to war in Ukraine.
