Former Penn State wrestler David Taylor sees career come to close at World Championships
Former Penn State wrestler David Taylor has had quite the career on a wrestling mat.
While with the Nittany Lions, he was a four-time NCAA finalist — winning twice — a four-time Big Ten champion, two-time Hodge Trophy winner, and led the team to four straight team titles. Internationally, he won an Olympic gold medal in 2020, and captured three other world titles before that, while being in four world finals.
On Thursday in Tirana, Albania, Taylor saw his career come to a close with his fifth world medal — a bronze at 92 kilograms — at the World Championships. He missed out on the Summer Olympic Games in Paris after losing to fellow Nittany Lion Aaron Brooks in April at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials.
“When you’re so good for so long, you just never know when it’s time to be done. I just got the opportunity to go out the way I wanted to,” Taylor said during an interview with FloWrestling. “It was a tough decision to wrestle, but I just didn’t want to end the way it did in April. It didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to be here either, but I just wanted to have the chance to finish on my terms.”
The new Oklahoma State head coach began competition on Wednesday, but it didn’t go quite as planned as he had to face two-time Olympic and five-time world champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev in the first round.
It was a match that wrestling fans wanted to see and both wrestlers wanted to have, but Sadulaev, who became a six-time champ by winning the championships, was just too much for Taylor in a 7-0 shutout.
With Sadulaev making the finals, that pulled Taylor into the repechage that took place on Thursday.
He opened the repechage by topping Azerbaijan Abubakr Abakarov, 3-1. Taylor followed that up with a dominant 11-1 technical superiorty over Germany’s Lars Schaefle. Taylor led the match 5-1 after one period.
In the bronze medal match, Taylor took on Iran’s Kamran Ghasempour, who is a two-time world champion.
The Iranian tallied the first points with a takedown late in the first period to lead 2-0 after one period. However, Taylor responded with two quick takedowns 30 seconds into the second period to claim a 4-2 lead.
He tacked on one last takedown with two seconds left for a 6-2 career-ending victory.
Taylor finished with a freestyle record of 161-22 and all those previously mentioned accolades.
“I end my career where everybody in the world knew who I was. Every wrestling room and wrestling gym across the entire world, so I think that alone is a pretty cool way to end the sport,” Taylor told FloWrestling. “I had a lot of help along the way.”
