Wrestling is already underway at the 2024 Olympics, but several gold medalists from the 2020 Games are not allowed to compete after being ruled ineligible by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Russia and Belarus were banned from competing in the Olympics following the Russian invasion into the Ukraine in 2022. Some athletes earned a status as Individual Neutral Athletes, which allowed them to compete at the 2024 Olympics, but many of the top names from Russia aren’t in Paris.

Among those banned this year include 2020 freestyle gold medalists Abdulrashid Sadulaev (97kg), Zaurbek Sidakov (74kg), and Zavur Uguev (57kg), as well as Greco-Roman gold medalist Musa Evloev (97kg), who is the older brother of UFC featherweight contender Movsar Evloev. While those excluded definitely impact the overall Olympic field for 2024, 2020 gold medalist David Taylor doesn’t believe their absence somehow taints wins in any of those divisions for the wrestlers vying for championships in Paris.

“It’s unfortunate for these guys to not get a chance to wrestle,” Taylor told MMA Fighting. “For Kyle Snyder to not get a chance to wrestle Sadulaev again. For Kyle Dake to not get a chance to wrestle Sidakov again. I think that’s tough, but that’s just athletics. You could get hurt. You could sprain an ankle, whatever it may be.”

Snyder and Sadulaev have engaged in an epic rivalry that dates back several years after the American defeated “The Russian Tank” to win a World Championship in 2017. Sadulaev got his revenge in 2018 and then again at the 2020 Olympics, beating Snyder in the gold medal match by a 6-3 score.

As disappointing as it may be that Snyder and Sadulaev won’t meet at the Olympics — or perhaps ever again on this stage, just based on timing and the age of the athletes — that doesn’t mean the competition loses a step.

A perfect example is Akhmed Tazhudinov, a 21-year-old phenom born in Dagestan who actually came up in the same club as Sadulaev, but eventually had to leave home and represent a different country if he hoped to become an Olympic champion.

At the 2023 World Championships, Tazhudinov shocked the field by scoring a tech fall on Snyder with an 11-0 score, beating an injured Sadulaev 9-2, then claiming the gold with a pin in the final match. Tazhudinov is undoubtedly the favorite to win his division again at the 2024 Olympics, and while his singlet says he’s representing Bahrain, no one is disillusioned enough to forget he came from Russia.

“A lot of the depth in Russia transferred to other countries,” Taylor said. “So it’s not like you’re wrestling just one Russian. Back in the day it was the Soviet Union, you wrestled one Russian, it made up all the Russian countries. Since then, those guys, they might live in Dagestan like Tazhudinov or wherever it might be, they might live or train there but they represent all of those other countries. They’ve done that really my entire competitive career.

“Then this year more than ever, the ones that were second or third or had a lot of depth in Russia, have left and they’re wrestling for Bahrain or Azerbaijan or Uzbekistan, they’re wrestling for France, Italy, Greece. They’re going and they’re finding other places that they want to wrestle. A lot of these brackets are made of six or eight Russians anyways. So maybe one is not going to be there, but you’re still wrestling a lot of other good ones.”

Taylor remarked that there was one division recently that featured a field that had more Russians in it than every other country combined.

“I think at 74kg, at one time there was like 10 Russians in that weight class,” Taylor revealed. “Sixteen guys, 10 Russians.”

Because Russian athletes are now competing for other countries, Taylor says the level of competition in the 2024 Games is really no different, which is why he’s not concerned about the few athletes who ultimately were shut out of Paris.

“I think the illusion is, ‘Oh man, Russia [is out], it’s not as tough,’” Taylor said. “This is going to be the toughest Olympics there’s ever been because of that. Because you’re wrestling these guys that have transferred.”

With or without Sidakov at 74kg, American Kyle Dake was one of the favorites to challenge for gold, and the same goes for Snyder at 97kg. The biggest difference for Snyder is that his path to claiming a third Olympic medal after winning gold in 2016 and silver in 2020 could put him on a collision course with Tazhudinov again.

Snyder may have been blanked the last time around, but Taylor believes that was as much a mental error on his countryman’s part as it was the sequence of events that allowed Tazhudinov to get a big lead that effectively won him the match.

“I think when you look back last year, I think Kyle was thinking about Sadulaev,” Taylor said. “No one was really thinking about Tazhudinov at the time. He was a young kid, he had some results but they weren’t ones that you’re going to stop and really think about the way he was competing. Obviously the way he wrestled the World Championships last year and since then, he’s been on a tear. He’s good because he can score in a lot of ways. He’s offensively gifted, but defensively, he’s also got his chest wraps and his scrambles and his cradles. He’s a great wrestler.

“I think Kyle has definitely a big strength advantage when he wrestled Tazhudinov. I think he just needs to be very aware on his finishes. I think that was really what happened last year. There were two exchanges, two chest wraps that Tazhudinov got that I think both were four points, and four-point swings in freestyle wrestling are pretty significant, especially in chest wraps. For Kyle, it’s just having patience on his finishing. He’s going to get to the legs. He’s going to get there.”

Taylor has called Snyder a teammate over the past few years as both worked out of the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club in State College, Pa., and he’s expecting another outstanding performance from the Ohio State alum.

Nothing comes easy at the Olympics, but Taylor has faith in Snyder’s ability to overcome a bad loss and come back better for an even bigger win.

“This year, Kyle has been extremely focused,” Taylor said. “Obviously he’s hungry and he wants to compete well, and Kyle just has this fighting spirit that I’ve just never really been around from other people before. He’s just so focused. This one means a lot to him. I’m excited to watch him compete.”