Kyle Snyder becomes America's youngest ever wrestling world champion

On Friday, Kyle Snyder banished all lingering memories of his bitter NCAA final defeat in March by taking home the second sweetest prize in amateur wrestling, the World Championships. Next to the Olympic Games, there is no bigger achievement in the world of wrestling, and on Friday, Snyder took home the gold at the age of 19 to become the youngest ever American world champion in the process.

Snyder has had an interesting year. Firstly, he wrestled superbly against all of his Big Ten opponents, amassing an impressive record before being unseated at the final hurdle by Penn State's Morgan McIntosh. Just a few weeks after Snyder's razor-close loss in the Big Ten, he once again tasted the bitterness of defeat at the hands of Kyven Gadson in the NCAA finals.

Many a man would have been broken after tasting defeat at the final hurdle, not once, but twice. However, Kyle Snyder isn't a normal human being.

Standing across from Snyder on Friday was Abdusalam Gadisov of Russia, the defending world champion who had dropped only 2 points in the entire tournament prior to the finals. In a battle of epic proportions, Kyle Snyder took home victory by the tightest of margins: a criteria  after the pair tied out at 5-5. At the age of 19, only 15 months after graduating from high school, Snyder done the unthinkable, beating the defending champ and becoming the youngest ever American wrestling world champion.

With his victory, Kyle Snyder becomes the 3rd ever Ohio State student to take home a medal at the world's along side Jim Humphrey and former UFC champion, Mark "The Hammer" Coleman.

Speaking to Cleveland.com, Snyder let loose about what was going through his head in the finals match:

"I wasn't going to walk off that mat without a gold medal,'' Snyder said. "When you feel pain like that, you never want to feel it again. I wasn't going to take second at nationals. I wasn't going to take second at Pan Am (Games) and I wasn't going to take a silver medal at worlds. That was not going to happen.''

Watch the final below: