Losing at the U.S. Olympic trials back in April just didn’t leave a good taste in David Taylor’s mouth so the 2020 Olympic gold medalist returned for one last tournament.
While he fell in the opening round in a highly anticipated showdown against Russian mauler Abdulrashid Sadulaev, who went onto capture gold, Taylor stormed back to win bronze at 92kgs and become a five-time medalist at the wrestling World Championships.
With the win, Taylor called it a career as he prepares to resume coaching the Oklahoma State wrestling team with the collegiate season kicking off in just two weeks.
“It’s a tough decision to wrestle but I just didn’t want to end the way I did in April,” Taylor told FloWrestling after his win. “It didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to be here either. I want to have the chance to finish on my terms.
“Coming into this knowing this is it, I was hyper focused on wrestling Sadulaev and the game script of what I thought and how the match went different, I should have wrestled it like that match. I felt like this was a chance at redemption.”
To win bronze, Taylor took out two-time World champion Kamran Ghasempour from Iran.
An emotional end to a legendary career pic.twitter.com/xSLXR9i3q2
— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) October 31, 2024
After going down 2-0 in the opening period, Taylor increased his activity and immediately put the Iranian on the defensive after scoring a pair of takedowns. Taylor wrapped up the victory with a final takedown with just three seconds left on the clock to go up 6-2 and secure the bronze medal.
It was an impressive rebound for Taylor, who had to wait until opening round matchups played out to know if he would get pulled back into repechage but once he got there, the former Penn State standout dominated the competition. He won 3-1 over Abubakr Abakarov of Azerbaijan and then delivered an 11-1 tech fall over Lars Schaefle from Germany.
Taylor retires as one of the most accomplished wrestlers from the United States with two NCAA championships to go along with his Olympic gold medal and three golds at the World Championships.
After falling to fellow Penn State alum Aaron Brooks at the Olympic trials, Taylor said his competitive career was over after he accepted the head coaching job at Oklahoma State where he took over for fellow legend John Smith. But Taylor just couldn’t let his career end on a loss like that so he returned for one last run at the World Championships where he won the bronze medal in what is now his final match.
