Kyle Snyder, the youngest US wrestler to ever win Olympic gold in 2016, is competing in the Olympics again this year with Team USA, now as a more veteran member of the team.
He has many other accolades, including three NCAA championships, two world championships, and a silver medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The top wrestling competitors are the US, Russia, and Iran, which adds geopolitical zest to the bouts, Snyder noted.
Snyder and I met in Philadelphia—he lives and trains in State College, Pennsylvania—before he headed out to France. Olympic wrestling events begin August 5.
Your faith came about through wrestling, right?
I’ve always been addicted to sports. I wanted to be in the NFL. And then I stopped growing. So I thought, I guess I’ll try to be the best wrestler. I had a lot of success and I won, but I wasn’t wrestling to my potential because I was afraid of losing. I felt like if I lost, then I wouldn’t be as valuable a person, and I’d be embarrassed. I would get tight and not be able to compete even near to the way I could practice.
I moved to the Olympic training center my senior year of high school, and the coaches asked me to start coming to a Bible study with them. I said, “Yeah, I’ll go.” I would jump off a bridge if they told me to. I just wanted to win world and Olympic titles, and if they thought studying the Bible would help, then I’d do it. So I went to the Bible studies. Never read a Bible before. I used to think, How can anyone read it? It’s so big, and the words are so small. But I started enjoying the stories from the Bible. And then I moved to Ohio State and started going to Bible studies there.
But I wasn’t fully committed. I was still doing a lot of my own will, living how I wanted to. My goal was to be a four-time NCAA champion—that’s a big goal in wrestling. I made it to the finals my freshman year and I ended up getting pinned. That was heartbreaking for me. It was the first time I had ever been depressed. I’m a happy guy, but I was just broken and didn’t talk to anybody for a week, didn’t eat.
My strength coach called me and he was like, “All right, you know what you got to do now? You got to give your whole life to Jesus. You’ve got to be more committed to him than you are to wrestling.” I said , “I don’t even know how to do that, or what that even means .” I just prayed that night that God would help me be more committed to him than anything else in my life. And I started being more disciplined with studying the Word myself.
Then, seven months later, I became the youngest world champion in the history of USA Wrestling. I went from being the second best in college wrestling to the best in the world. I didn’t get any better at technique, and my shape didn’t get any better. But God, he freed me from my identity of being a wrestler and from my value coming from winning wrestling matches, to my identity being his child. And my purpose is to know him and trust in him and, Lord willing, to bring other people into faith. I was able to compete a lot harder.
Is that something you’ve seen happen with other wrestlers you know?
In 2016, there were seven guys at the Olympics—five of them were Christians who were really passionately following the Lord. You go to any wrestling camp, there’s Bible study almost every night with 40, 50 guys there.
The guy who was leading the study at the Olympic training center, his name is Gene Davis. And he’s worked for Athletes in Action for 65 years, and he’s still teaching. There’s so many people who have poured so much work into the sport, in regard to faith. You start to learn about God, and you’re like, Wow, I want to just follow him because I love him, and he loves me.
I saw there was a worship service at the Olympic trials.
The Olympic trials were on Saturday. And then on Sunday, we just had a Bible study, we were singing, and a couple people taught. About 230 people came.
It was a great way to end the weekend, because some people’s dreams got crushed. Only six people accomplished what they set out to do. It was a good way to get refocused on what’s most important.
What do you think is special about wrestling as a sport?
Wrestling forces you to look within so, so deeply. You’re going out there to fight somebody else. In the moments beforehand, you have a lot of questions that come into your head that you have to deal with. So that’s something people don’t see.
My friend who is a wrestling fan said one thing he likes about wrestling is that you have to get beat up a lot to be good—you have to lose a lot and learn from it.
Yeah, every wrestler experiences it. I’ve always been bigger for my age too. So I was wrestling kids a lot older than me. I was beat up a lot as a kid. I’ve also had this weird belief in my ability to win ever since I was a kid. I would get beat real bad by somebody. And I’d be like, Yeah, the next time, I’m going to beat them. And then they beat me again. … But that belief never wavered for some reason. I think God gave that mindset to me.
We talk about losing well as Christians, but what do you, as a Christian, see that’s good about being competitive and about winning?
In my career, I’ve traveled to places like Russia, Dagestan, Iran, Georgia, and Ukraine. A lot of the places I go, the majority of people are Muslim. But they’ll listen to what I have to say because I’ve won a lot. That gives me an opportunity to be able to tell them, “Well, this is what I believe, and this is what’s helped me in my career.” It’s just being genuine about the way God’s worked in my life. And they listen.
Did your faith change your mental approach to the sport in other ways?
One major change that took place early on in my faith was—it used to be, if I didn’t win, but my teammates won, that was a problem for me. I was jealous. I wasn’t happy for them.
I might externally say good job, but, internally, that was something I really struggled with. God helped me with that. I wanted to be happy for my friends and genuinely wanted them to do well. But I couldn’t do that before. God taught me how, and helped my heart, to just love other people more.
What do you think about the culture of kids sports now, where you have to start young, be committed 24/7, travel, and all that?
It’s definitely not what you have to do. I know stories of many different people that have made Olympic teams and started wrestling in high school. Kids should do things they enjoy, start slow, work on technique, and have fun. When they start to understand competition more, they can get into that.
The issue is, parents all believe their kids are going to go to the NFL or NBA. But it’s just not the truth. Only a couple of people get to do it. Kids can get better in a less intense, more fun environment. Parents need to chill out.
I do clinics; we have our own camp that we run each summer. I’ve been around a lot of kids and their parents. Some of the kids are crying out on the mat. They’re too young to even understand what’s going on. They’d be better just learning a couple moves, a technique, and then playing a game.
Twenty years ago, no Olympians had to deal with social media. You have more than 300,000 followers on Instagram. How do you balance promoting your personal brand and focusing on your sport?
Social media is pretty draining. I’m seeing pictures of my competition and seeing what people are saying. I don’t want to see comments about me and think about that. I don’t really get too involved with it.
Is there anything you’re looking forward to about this Olympics?
Doing the opening ceremonies and all that at the 2016 Olympics was really cool. But when I look back, my favorite part was the wrestling. I’m just looking forward to wrestling.
The last Olympics was during COVID-19. Everybody had to wear a mask, you had to get COVID tested every day, no family could come. I’m looking forward to it just being back to normal.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
