IOWA CITY — Jake Varner, an ISU wrestler from 2005-2010, rested his hands on his knees in the second match of a best of three series at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials in Iowa City.

Varner was in the finals wrestling Ohio State’s Kyle Snyder. The winner would go to the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro.

The first match ended in a 4-4 tie, but Varner, the 2012 gold medalist, won because of the tie breaker rules — he had two, two-point moves, whereas Snyder had one two-point move and two one-point moves.

In the second match, 2015 world champion Snyder won 4-0. Varner’s chest inhaled and exhaled deeply with each breath he took. Fatigue had set in.

The two grapplers would face off one last time to determine who would make the trip to Rio. Varner came out with a lot of energy, getting after Snyder, but Snyder defended all of his shots flawlessly.

After the first minute, Varner was back to resting his hands on his knees. Snyder had won 6-0.

After the first session that saw Varner defeat Enock Francois, Dustin Kilgore and former Cyclone Kyven Gadson, Varner would have to wrestle a rested Snyder. Snyder didn’t have to wrestle in the first session because he was a world medalist from the previous year, giving him an automatic bye to the finals.

“These are the matches you look forward to,” Varner said before his match against Snyder. “I couldn’t look forward to this [match] until I finished this tournament. Now it’s one match at a time. Now we will focus on tonight. It’s going be exciting.”

Snyder agreed. Having a guy like Varner in his weight class makes him train that much harder.

Snyder said he’s a self-motivated person but throwing in the previous Olympic gold medalist made him train that much harder.

“It always helps when you can throw in different things, and he was a big thing,” Snyder said. “I knew he was going to be tough. Everybody said he was wrestling great. It was exciting to be able to compete against him.”

Varner lost to Snyder three times in previous tournaments before defeating him in the first match of the finals. Snyder felt some nerves after Varner’s opening match victory.

“I was definitely really nervous,” Snyder said. “[Losing] put a lot of pressure on me, and now I know why, if you win the first match, 80 percent of the time you win the second one. Now I know why that is, because it’s pretty scary.”

Snyder’s coach, Lou Rosselli, went through something similar in 1996. He lost his first match in overtime, but he bounced back and won the Olympic gold.

Rosselli coached Snyder through his first match loss, and Snyder is now headed to the Olympics after defeating former Cyclone and gold medalist Jake Varner.