Olympic champ David Taylor explains decision to retire from competition after missing out on 2024 Games

David Taylor spent a huge part of the past 12 years preparing for the Olympics, and he finally realized his dream of winning a gold medal when he stormed through the competition during the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

As the 2024 Olympics crept closer, Taylor was once again a heavy favorite to represent the United States in freestyle wrestling, with designs on capturing a second straight gold medal. However, that pursuit ended when Taylor suffered a stunning upset to fellow Penn State alum Aaron Brooks in back-to-back matches during April’s U.S. Olympic trials.

Prior to the Olympic trials, Taylor teased an interest in potentially pursuing a future in MMA after his wrestling career was finished. But rather than fighting or even wrestling any longer, Taylor instead recently accepted the head coaching job at Oklahoma State to replace legendary American wrestler John Smith, who retired after 33 years on the job.

For Taylor, who had every intention of winning another gold medal and then contemplating a future that possibly involved fighting, it was only upon self-reflection following the U.S. Olympic trials that he realized it was time for his athletic career to come to an end.

“I’ve always said I would compete as long as I had the fire,” Taylor told MMA Fighting. “This year, that fire started to just kind of go away. I’ve achieved everything I wanted to achieve in my career. You start off and you want to be a good wrestler, then you set your goals — and I had the highest goal of being an Olympic gold medalist. Being a national champion, being a world champion, being an Olympic gold medalist, it’s hard to continue to recreate that fire every single year.

“I was 33 years old. I had achieved everything I wanted to achieve. I got a young family, so this year was a challenge to find that fire everyday.”

That fact hit him like a hammer when he arrived at the U.S. Olympic trials, which took place in his backyard at State College, Penn., where he was a two-time NCAA champion at Penn State.

As a 2020 Olympic champion, Taylor only had to compete in the finals, but it wasn’t until he set foot on the mats to face Brooks that he knew something just felt different.

“When I competed at the Olympic trials, I just didn’t compete with the fire that I always had,” Taylor said. “So I think I was sad and frustrated to lose, obviously, because that’s just not something I’ve been accustomed to doing, but also understanding, maybe this is the end of it for me from a competitive standpoint.”

A couple of weeks after the Olympic trials ended, Taylor received a call that Oklahoma State was interested in pursuing him as the head coach of their program.

Because coaching requires so much time and dedication, especially one as storied as Oklahoma State, Taylor knew he had to make a choice to either continue competing or effectively leave his wrestling shoes in the middle of the mat and call it a career.

“I think a lot of things in life are timing based, and I was at that crossroads of figuring out what I was going to do,” Taylor said. “I wouldn’t say what’s next, because I always had a very good plan. I knew what was next. My life in State College, my wife and I, we launched a couple businesses, a successful wrestling club, a lot of livelihood and a lot of what I was doing was revolved outside of actually wrestling and competing. Wrestling and competing is what I did and I loved to do that, but I had a lot of other entities that I did to support my family. So it wasn’t like I was at a crossroads of like, ‘What am I going to do?’ It was just making a choice.

“When this job came available, rather than doing three or four different things, this is a great opportunity to do one thing. And it’s a job that requires a lot of time and energy, but I think that I was put on this Earth to coach and to mentor people, and to use my career as an example and the way to think and compete, and the opportunity do that now at the highest level with the best athletes. I think to draw an end to my career, it’s still a little weird to think about not competing anymore, but I have a resurgence of energy and excitement when I come into the room that I didn’t have a couple of months ago when I was competing.”

After receiving the job offer, Taylor reached out to his coach Cael Sanderson — an Olympic gold medalist in his own right who has become the most successful coach in college wrestling — and told him that he was retiring from competition to take over at Oklahoma State.

It didn’t take long after that conversation for Taylor to get the ball rolling in his new gig. After relocating his family, he immediately began working to take the Cowboys to the same heights he reached several times during his own career.

While he’s no longer leaving his own blood, sweat, and tears on the mats as a wrestler, Taylor promises that competitive fire is burning hotter than ever now that he has a new purpose in life.

“I’ve never done anything in my life to try and get second place or just to compete,” Taylor said. “I’ve done it to try and compete at the highest level. As a coach, there’s no competition for the best coach. The competition is how to serve your athletes the best, and how to help your athletes perform at their best and help the athletes become the best at what they’re trying to do. So you’re competing differently.

“Having peace in my career, I have no intention to have to live vicariously through an athlete or through anybody else. I have peace. I did all these things and now it’s helping them.”