Kyle Snyder won his first gold medal in five years on Sunday as the United States secured its fourth team title at the wrestling world championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Snyder, affectionately nicknamed "Captain America" by Team USA wrestling fans, was the 2016 Olympic champion and won his third world championships gold by defeating Slovak Batyrbek Tsakulov 6-0 in the 97kg final. His other gold medals came at the 2015 tournament in Las Vegas and the 2017 competition in Paris, France.
Kyle Snyder wins his 4th world or Olympic gold and USA wins its 4th team title! A great day for American wrestling is recapped here. #UWW #WrestleBelgrade
— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) September 18, 2022
https://t.co/ORuGRhWKQE pic.twitter.com/ISqUGGQG6D
This year, Snyder's primary rival, Russian wrestler Abdulrashid Sadulaev, was absent from the tournament. Snyder and Sadulaev, nicknamed "The Russian Tank," had met in four of the last five global championship finals, with the latter winning the previous three meetings, causing Synder to take silver in 2018, 2020 and 2021 and claim bronze in the 2019 world championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
Overall, the former Buckeye wrestler has competed internationally for eight years and participated on the United States national team in each of those years. In that time, Snyder – now 26 years old – has reached seven finals, won four gold medals and been a part of two team titles for the Americans.
At Ohio State, Snyder won three Big Ten Championships and three NCAA Championships from 2016-2018. He was also the runner-up finisher in both events as a freshman in 2015. Snyder finished his career with a 75-5 record and firmly solidified himself as one of the best Buckeye wrestlers of all time.
