Olympic wrestling champ brawls with seven cops during drink driving arrest

An Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler has taken on seven police officers who tried to arrest him for alleged drunk driving on his 50th birthday.

Ukrainian wrestler Vyacheslav Oliynyk was filmed on Friday in Kiev, face covered in blood, battling a throng of cops armed with pepper spray and batons, Ukranian Pravda reports.

A large crowd of people watched police attempt to arrest their former champion, whose black 4WD had been stopped in the middle of a three-lane road.

Oliynik, who had been out celebrating his milestone birthday, is seen in a heated argument with a police officer, which then quickly escalated while the wrestler's young son watched on from the vehicle.

The former Olympic champion copped a face full of pepper spray, before he was hit with a series of punishing baton blows.

Seven police officers then circled and swarmed Oliynik, who stubbornly remained fighting on his feet before he was eventually subdued and forced to ground.

"I'm partly guilty because I did not stop and I was ignoring the police," Oliynik said after his arrest.

"But I am not a criminal. As far as I can see there will be a court hearing and they will punish me somehow because they always do."

"However the fact that police let me go home on the same day shows I didn’t do anything that bad."