The pinch-me moment for Ohio State wrestler Kyle Snyder occurred when he looked across the mat at the world freestyle championships in Las Vegas in September and saw Abdusalam Gadisov, the defending champion, standing between him and a 97-kilogram gold medal.
“I was so excited to wrestle this guy that I had watched compete since I was a kid,” said Snyder, who at 19 was 10 years younger than his Russian opponent. “He has some really exciting moves and he has been winning for a really long time.
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“I was happy because I was getting the chance to wrestle him so that I could see what that felt like.