Kyle Snyder

Kyle Frederick Snyder (born November 20, 1995) is an American freestyle wrestler and graduated folkstyle wrestler who competes at 97 kilograms.

He holds the distinctions of being the youngest Olympic Gold medalist and the youngest World Champion in American wrestling history.

A few weeks later he rebounded from this loss with remarkable resilience: Snyder defeated returning Olympic gold medalist Jake Varner for a chance to represent the U.S. on its 2015 World Team, then became the youngest World Champion in American wrestling history by dethroning the reigning World Champion.

Snyder continued his extraordinary run by returning to Ohio State and rallying for an overtime victory over NC State University's Nick Gwiazdowski, the returning back-to-back heavyweight national champion.

Even giving away more than 30 pounds Snyder was able to end Gwiazdowski's 88-match win streak and earn his first individual NCAA title as a true sophomore.

Snyder is also the youngest wrestler ever to win the World, NCAA, and Olympic championships in the same year — a triple crown of American wrestling that had not been accomplished in a generation until he completed his sweep at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

A few months later Snyder would win his historic gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics — capping-off his unprecedented streak of winning wrestling's three most prestigious championships in succession before his 21st birthday, defeating the man holding each title along the way.

After returning to Ohio State and winning his second consecutive NCAA heavyweight title at the end of an undefeated 2016–2017 wrestling season, Snyder would avenge his loss to Gadson in the finals of America's 2017 World Team Trials, sweeping him with two straight tech-falls and a cumulative score of 23–2.

2016 Olympic champion Kyle Snyder (USA) lost 0:10 early to Akhmed Tazhudinov (Bahrain) at the World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade 2023

! colspan="7"| Senior Freestyle Matches

! Res. ! Record

! Opponent

! Score

! Date

! Event

! Location

! style=background:white colspan=7 |2024 Pan American Championships at 97 kg ! style=background:white colspan=7 |2023 Pan American Games at 97 kg ! style=background:white colspan=7 |2023 World Championships at 97 kg 🇷🇸 Belgrade, Serbia

! style=background:white colspan=7 |2023 Pan American Championships at 97 kg ! style=background:white colspan=7 |2023 Dan Kolov & Nikola Petrov

🇧🇬 Sofia, Bulgaria

! style=background:white colspan=7 |2023 Zagreb Open

! style=background:white colspan=7 |2022 World Cup

Snyder, nicknamed "Snyderman", became the first Olympic Gold Medalist to return to college and win an NCAA title, clinching his second consecutive NCAA heavyweight title in 2017 despite tearing cartilage in his chest in the quarter-finals and being out-weighed by upwards of 40 pounds throughout the tournament.

In 2017, Snyder defeated Abdulrashid Sadulaev at the 2017 World Championships, marking Sadulaev's first loss in his last 75 matches and the second one in his whole career.

This come-from-behind victory earned Team USA its first World Championship in over 20 years and Snyder his third consecutive individual World or Olympic championship, and led to Snyder being ranked as the best pound for pound freestyle wrestler on the planet by Flowrestling in September 2017, a title he would retain in their June 2018 rankings.

Snyder's accomplishments led him to being named the winner of the 2017 AAU Sullivan Award, presented annually to top amateur athlete in the United States.

He ended his collegiate career as the first wrestler to win the NCAA, World, and Olympic championships as a student athlete.

In his first three years of high school at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney, Maryland, Snyder amassed a 179–0 record, won three Prep National Championships, and only conceded a single takedown.

Named the national high school wrestler of the year by both Intermat and ASICS, Snyder was also ranked as the #1 pound-for-pound high school wrestler in America by Flowrestling after his junior season.

He then spent his senior year training at the United States Olympic Training Center, competing internationally for Team USA and winning America's first Junior World Championship in over 20 years while becoming the youngest two-time Junior World medalist in American history.

To begin his collegiate wrestling career, Snyder accepted a scholarship from the Ohio State Buckeyes, helping them to an NCAA team championship as a true freshman by finishing as runner-up to a fifth-year senior, Iowa State's Kyven Gadson, in the national finals.

He would then face another historic bout in the finals of the 2017 Paris World Championships: with Russia and the U.S. tied for first place at 53 points each, Snyder stepped onto the mat for "The Match of the Century" – the team championship, an individual title at 97 kg, and two young legacies were on the line.

His opponent was Abdulrashid Sadulaev, a young Russian phenom on a three-year undefeated streak that included two World Championships as well as an Olympic gold, who was then considered the best pound-for-pound wrestler in the world.

Sadulaev moved-up a weight class specifically to challenge Snyder, and quickly took a 2–0 lead early in their finals match.

But Snyder battled back, and tied the match at 3–3 before the end of the first period, only to have Sadulaev score another takedown and regain the lead.

A lead that lasted until the final 20 seconds of the match when Snyder's furious pace allowed him to score a late takedown at the edge of the mat – sealing Team USA's first World Championship in over 20 years, Snyder's third consecutive individual World or Olympic championship, and wresting the title of best pound-for-pound wrestler on the planet away from Sadulaev.

In a story recounted to The Washington Post by his college coach, Tom Ryan, after Snyder's thrilling come-from-behind overtime victory which clinched his first NCAA heavyweight title in front of a sold-out Madison Square Garden – a match chosen by fans to be the final one of the night and broadcast live in primetime to millions on ESPN – a maintenance worker approached Ryan to let him know what made Snyder, who'd already made wrestling history as America's youngest World Champion and was named Most Outstanding Wrestler of those NCAA Championships, stand out from his competition the most that weekend: he'd been the only athlete in the entire tournament who continually thanked him for refilling the stadium's water jugs.

In 2018, Snyder won his third straight individual NCAA title as a heavyweight, this time being out-weighed by nearly 60 pounds "in one of the biggest size differences in an NCAA championship match in history", and became the first three-time NCAA heavyweight champion in nearly 30 years.

Along the way he became the youngest American, and only the eleventh ever, to win the Ivan Yarygin Memorial Grand Prix, which is widely considered to be the toughest open wrestling tournament in the world.

Snyder dominated it with three technical-falls and then a pin in the finals.

The following year Snyder would become the first American man not only to win back-to-back Yarygin titles, but the only one to win the prestigious tournament more than once at all, earning him Best Foreign Wrestler honors from his Russian hosts.