David Taylor is called the magic man, and he found a little bit of it late in Tokyo to become a gold medal winner.

The Penn State great was trailing 3-2 opposite Iran's Hassan Yazdanicharati when he shot and hit a double leg takedown with 10 seconds left to win first place at 86 kilograms.

"Olympic champion for the rest of my life!" Taylor shouted into an NBC camera as he toured the mat with an American flag draped around his shoulders.

Taylor entered the tournament and immediately went on a tear. He beat his first opponent, Ali Shabanau of Belarus, 11-0 before scoring 12 unanswered points against San Marino representative Myles Amine in the quarters to win, 12-2. Finally, Taylor earned his spot in the final with a semifinal demolition of India's Deepak Punia that saw Taylor score 10 points to win by technical superiority before the first period even ended.

Yazdanicharati was a different challenge, however. Taylor beat him twice previously and they know each other well. The Iranian scored two of his points via the match official once putting Taylor on the shot clock and later giving him a caution for dropping to a knee near the out-of-bounds line. Yazdani's third point came on a pushout, while Taylor connected a pair of takedowns together for the victory.

"Very rarely do you get an opportunity to see a big-time matchup going into an event of this magnitude that actually lives up to the hype," NBC analyst and Olympic champ Jordan Burroughs said on NBC. "That match lived up to the billing and was everything that we expected, and David Taylor was able to come out on top.

"He was behind, trailed the entire match, he was bloody, he had a huge hole in his singlet, and never took his eyes off the goal. He knew coming into this tournament that he wanted to be an Olympic champion, and by gosh, he delivered with amazing performance."

A St. Paris, Ohio native, Taylor was already a World Champion in addition to a multi-time NCAA champion, and the 30-year-old has plenty of other title hardware in his trophy case, as well. Now, he's a gold medalist.

Earlier Thursday, NLWC wrestler Thomas Gilman won a bronze medal at 57 kg, and more members of the Olympic training center in State College are competing over the next two days.

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