David Taylor roared through the world's
best last month to win the 2018 world
championship at 86 kilograms. A four-
time All-American, four-time NCAA fi-
nalist and two-time NCAA champion at
Penn State, Taylor went
5-0 in a two-day run in
Budapest, Hungary, to
claim his first world title.
Taylor began his title
run by going 4-0 on day
one of the event. He
opened up one of the
tournament's toughest
draws by defeating for-
mer world and Olympic
champion Hassan Yazdanicharti of Iran,
11-6. Later, Taylor rolled to a 10-0 tech-
nical fall over Hajy Rajabau of Belarus,
then posted an 8-0 decision over Cuba's
Yurieski Torreblanca in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, Taylor met Russia's
Dauren Kuruglieve. The former Nittany
Lion took a kick to the head in the first
period and fell behind, 5-1. But he roared
back in the second period, reeling off six
consecutive unanswered points to post a
7-5 victory and advance to the champi-
onship bout.
The tournament's No. 2 seed, Taylor
met top-seeded Fatih Erdin of Turkey in
the final. Taylor bolted out to a quick 4-0
lead en route to a 12-2 technical fall. In the
process, he became, at age 27, USA
Wrestling's oldest first-time Olympic or
world champion since Bill Zadick won
gold in 2006 at age 33.
"This flag on my shoulders, looking up,
just the chills that I get when I think of
that moment [is gratifying]," Taylor told
NBCSports.com. "To be able to earn it the
way I earned it, there's no easy way. … I
wrestled every single best guy every sin-
gle round."
■
Taylor navigates
dicult path
to claim coveted
world title
TAYLOR
