Still a teenager for another two months, Kyle Snyder has already made his mark on the wrestling scene. Not just the Big Ten wrestling scene. Not the NCAA wrestling scene. Snyder, at the age of just 19, has captured the attention of the world wrestling community with last week’s gold medal performance at the Senior Wrestling World Championships.
Entering the tournament ranked 15th in the latest world rankings, Snyder took the 97 kg (roughly 213 lbs) bracket by storm en route to the gold medal. While relatively unproven at the international level (despite winning the Pan Am Games in July), the American representative faced a tough task right out of the gates as he met eleventh-ranked Pavlo Oliynik of Ukraine, who was a bronze medalist at the 2013 World Championships.