When Kyven Gadson stepped off the mat in St. Louis after winning a national championship in his final season as a college wrestler, he thought he was done with wrestling forever.

He had accomplished his goal – winning an NCAA national championship – and was prepared to end his career by riding off into the sunset.

After the season, Gadson took some time off. He sat down and thought about what he really wanted. He came to the conclusion that he wanted to be an Olympic champion and announced his intention to pursue just that last week.

“After NCAA’s I was tired,” Gadson said in an interview with the Iowa State Daily. “Like I said I was done. I didn’t want to wrestle anymore but I got time. I got to take some time and see if I still wanted to make the sacrifices and do the things necessary to become an Olympic champion.”

Riding off into the sunset as an NCAA champion might have been fitting, but Gadson couldn’t shake the desire to push himself further. He wasn’t satisfied with being the best college wrestler. He wanted to know if he was the best in the world.

Winning an NCAA title was a dream come true, but Gadson recalls having even bigger dreams.

“My goal as a kid was always to be an Olympic champion and I felt like this Olympic cycle, the 2016 cycle couldn’t have come at a better time,” he said.

Throughout the 2015-16 wrestling season, Gadson was adamant that it would be his final year as a competitive wrestler. He was eager to move past wrestling. While wrestling had provided Gadson with plenty of highs, it also brought about many lows.

“Wrestling has given me a lot…but it’s also caused a lot of heartache,” Gadson said. “Every wrestling memory I can remember since way back is basically connected to my father and I really didn’t know how to separate the two for a while after he passed.”

After his father Willie’s death, Kyven struggled with the sport. Returning to wrestling without his father wasn’t easy. Willie, a former Iowa State All-American wrestler himself, had coached his son throughout his youth.

He got through it, he won an NCAA Championship and thought it was time to get out of the sport.

But months after Gadson’s college career came to a close, he made the decision to continue on and pursue a spot in the 2016 Olympics.

“I don’t want to have regrets about if I could have been the best in the world, if I could have been an Olympic champ,” Gadson said. “I want to know. It’s an internal desire to be the best in the world. I want to know if I can be the best in the world.”

Gadson will join the Cyclone Wrestling Club, where he will pursue the next goal in his wrestling career.

Naturally, Cyclone Wrestling Club head coach Trent Paulson, who is also an assistant coach for ISU wrestling, was thrilled when Gadson made the decision to keep wrestling.

“I think he just had to take a step away, relax and breathe,” Paulson said of Gadson’s decision. “He’s mature for his age. He looks at the sport in a way most people his age don’t. He doesn’t look at it as life or death…a lot of time he’s just out there having fun and the results will take care of themselves.”

Gadson considered riding off into the sunset, ending his wrestling career with an NCAA national championship. Now, he’s working towards an even bigger goal.

“Maybe that will be an even better sunset,” Gadson said.