Heavyweight, Freestyle (≤97 kg), Men

The strong favourite in this class was America’s Kyle Snyder, who, at the age of 19 won the 2015 World Championships, shocking Russian Abdusalam Gadisov, the 2014 World champion. Other contenders would also be two Olympic bronze medalists – 2009 World champion Georgy Ketoyev from Armenia, and five-time World Championship medalist Xetaq Qazyumov from Azerbaijan.

But on the last day of the wrestling program at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Snyder won the Olympic gold medal in this class in a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Azerbaijan’s Qazyumov, the world number three and twice Olympic bronze medalist (96kg), an opponent he had lost to just a month prior to the 2016 Olympics.

Not only did Snyder became the youngest Olympic wrestling champion in United States history (age 21) just one year after becoming his nation’s youngest World champion, his gold was the USA’s only men’s wrestling medal at the Rio Games, and the sixth in Olympic history for his nation in this weight class. In his semi-final, Snyder defeated world number six Georgia’s Elizbar Odikadze 9-4. Romania’s Albert Saritov and Uzbekistan’s Magomed Ibragimov won the bronze medals.