Coronado celebrates this year’s Olympics with a second gold medal won by one of the many talented students of Coronado. Both golds were record breaking wins starting with the well-known Henry Cejudo in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and now a new champion in the 2016 Rio Olympics. On Sunday, August 21^st, Kyle Snyder brought home the gold in freestyle wrestling at only 20 years old, becoming the youngest US wrestling champion in Olympic history. This record was previously held by, you guessed it, Henry Cejudo at the age of 21 years old.

Kyle Snyder graduated from Coronado in 2014 and in his last year of high school, was training every day at the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center but what many don’t know, is that Kyle was actually unable to participate in the wrestling team here at Coronado due to the rule that was put in to effect after Henry Cejudo’s streak of wins. The rule states that any high school student training for the Olympics cannot participate on any school sports team. Kyle was, however, able to wrestle for his previous high school, Good Counsel, in Olney, creating an astonishing winning streak of 179 consecutive wins with absolutely no losses.

In an interview with the Washington Post Kyle Snyder said “Some days, it’s harder than others. But every piece of it, I do love. It feels like I’m just doing something that I love to do. It doesn’t feel like I’m making sacrifices or things like that. If it’s going to help me with wrestling, it’s going to help me become the best person I can be, then it’s worth it.”

After this year’s successful Olympics for team USA and Coronado we all anxiously await the next Olympics and hopefully will see more gold medals for Coronado.