David Taylor to retire from wrestling after world championships

Tokyo Olympic wrestling gold medalist David Taylor plans to retire — for a second time this year — after the world championships in two weeks.

“This is it,” Taylor said Monday when asked what his competitive career will look like after worlds. “Yeah, this is it.

“Between now and the world championships, it starts to hit you, the significance of what you’re balancing. It’s a lot.”

Taylor, 33, originally announced his retirement on May 10 in being introduced as the new head coach at Oklahoma State.

That came after he was swept in the U.S. Olympic Trials 86kg finals by fellow Nittany Lion Wrestling Club member Aaron Brooks on April 20.

Then on Sept. 12, Oklahoma State announced that Taylor was unretiring to compete at the trials for the world championships while serving as Cowboys head coach.

This year’s worlds are for non-Olympic weight classes. Members of the U.S. Olympic team in Paris were not eligible.

Taylor moved up to 92kg and won the trials to qualify for worlds from Oct. 28-31 in Albania. At the time, he said he didn’t know if he would accept the spot to wrestle at worlds.

“The timing, I think, works out,” he said Monday. “It’s still been difficult. I think every day I go through this is this the right decision thing, but I think it’s something that, you get an opportunity to wrestle a world championship. How often in your career do you get an opportunity to go wrestle, get an opportunity to be the best in the world?”

At worlds, Taylor could for the first time face Russian Abdulrashid Sadulayev, who like Taylor was at one time considered by many the world’s best pound-for-pound male wrestler.

Sadulayev preceded Taylor as Olympic 86kg gold medalist in 2016, then moved up to 97kg and won that division at the Tokyo Games.

Sadulayev was not offered a spot in the Paris Games by the IOC, which set strict eligibility rules for a limited number of athletes from Russia to compete in a neutral capacity across sports.

“When Sadulayev decided to wrestle, it definitely piqued my interest about wrestling world championships,” Taylor said on Flowrestling Radio Live on Thursday. “It’s a match that I wanted for a really long time.”