American Trent Hidlay took gold in his senior World Wrestling Championships debut, rallying from a 10-2 deficit to win 13-10 in a comeback that he said encapsulated his determined career.
Hidlay, 26, overtook Amanula Gadzhimagomedov, a 30-year-old neutral athlete from Russia, in Monday’s 92kg freestyle final in Zagreb, Croatia.
“It was chaotic, man,” said Hidlay, who was down 10-2 before halftime of the six-minute match. “Just a couple of seconds ago, you’re a challenge away from losing (in) two minutes and kind of getting your (butt) kicked. Just a quick prayer. I just said, ‘Just give me one more chance. Just please give me one more life, and I’ll figure a way out.’ I don’t remember anything that happened in the last four minutes. It hurt bad. It just felt really terrible doing it, but never give up, man.”
While at NC State, Hidlay lost to four-time national champion Aaron Brooks all four years at the NCAA Championships. He was also defeated by Olympic gold medalist David Taylor and world champion Zahid Valencia in world trials tournaments.
He moved up to 92kg (not an Olympic weight class) after losing his second match at the 2024 Olympic Trials at 86kg.
At these worlds, Hidlay won his first four matches by a combined 42-6 to reach the final. In a way, he portended the comeback after Sunday’s semifinals.
“I’ve always thought in my career, it’s just a matter of time before I start to really figure things out,” he said. “Just when I felt like I was figuring things out, I would get stopped, and it would force me to add another wrinkle to my game. I think the matches I’m wrestling right now, being able to respond after giving up the first takedown, giving up another takedown, are things I wasn’t able to do in the past. So not being afraid to mix it up and realize that there’s very few humans on this Earth that can go six minutes with me.
“You’re going to have to kill me out there. I really think that. You’re going to have to really take yourself to a dark place to be able to come out on the scoreboard against me.”
In Monday’s 79kg freestyle final, Greek Georgios Kougioumtsidis edged American Levi Haines 3-2.
Haines, a Penn State senior, took silver in his senior World Championships debut, beating 2023 World champion Akhmed Usmanov, a neutral athlete from Russia, along the way.
Kyle Snyder, a 2016 Olympic champion, advanced to Tuesday’s gold-medal match at 97kg.
Snyder gets Amir Ali Azarpira of Iran in a rematch of their 2024 Olympic bronze-medal match won by Azarpira 4-1.
