Hawkeyes vs. The World: Women's Freestyle Preview
With the 2025 World Wrestling Championships less than 24 hours away, it’s time to embark on Part Two of our preview-palooza for the Hawkeyes.
That means we’re diving deep into the Women’s Freestyle portion of proceedings, where a quartet of past/present Iowa wrestlers will pursue World titles/medals in Zagreb, Croatia.
We’ll follow the same format as we did in yesterday’s Men’s Freestyle preview – which examined the road ahead for Spencer Lee, Real Woods and Victor Voinovich III.
As for the Iowa women, action won’t officially commence until Tuesday the 16th.
That day, Macey Kilty (65 kilograms) and Kylie Welker (76kg) will lead things off – followed 24 hours later by Felicity Taylor (53kg) and Kennedy Blades (68kg).
And not only will these Hawkeyes be competing, but several of them are among the favorites to bring home gold at their respective weight classes.
As a reminder, the entirety of the World Championships will stream exclusively on FloWrestling.
And now, before we fully immerse ourselves in the nitty gritty of the Women’s Freestyle competition, here’s a quick primer on some of the ancillary elements of the tournament ahead.
**If you’ve already read my Men’s Freestyle preview feel free to skip ahead to the next section, as the following information will be repetitive and a waste of your valuable time.**
Schedule/seeding/repechage
As I mentioned in the intro, the schedule for this event (including Men’s Freestyle, Women’s Freestyle and Greco-Roman) begins on Saturday, September 13th and runs through September 21st.
Zagreb, Croatia – a common host for various international wrestling events – is seven hours ahead of Iowa City, Iowa. That means a lot of early morning action throughout the World Championships – particularly in the qualification rounds.
For the sake of the Hawkeye faithful, I’ll be doing all the conversions to Central Time for you. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about the 3:30 a.m. start times…
(Sorry.)
Thankfully, all semifinals and medal matches will take place at a far more reasonable hour for US fans (9:00 a.m. or later).
Here’s a beautiful guide to the entire competition, thanks to the work of USA Wrestling’s Mike Smit (a Hawkeye fan himself):
Also of importance – especially to novice international wrestling observers – is the process for seeding athletes at the World Championships.
You’ll notice throughout these previews that some of the top contenders at different weight classes are seeded lower in the pecking order, or in some cases not seeded at all. That can happen for a variety of reasons – all related to ranking points.
Per the United World Wrestling (UWW) Rule Book, ranking points can be accrued over a year-long period up to (and including) the previous Senior World Championships/Olympics, and depends on an athlete’s placement at either one of those two aforementioned tournaments, plus their Continental Championships and various Ranking Series events.
Points are also weighted toward the most prestigious tournaments.
However, those ranking points only count toward these 2025 World Championships IF they were earned at the same weight an athlete will be competing this week. That caveat works to the detriment of a couple Hawkeyes (and other wrestlers) – i.e. Kennedy Blades and Kylie Welker.
Blades’ Olympic silver medal from a year ago did not count toward her seeding points for these World Championships because she earned it at 76 kilograms – and will compete this week down at 68kg instead. Similarly, Welker earned World bronze at 72kg in 2024 but is competing at 76kg in Zagreb.
Any athlete who does not earn a top-eight seed will be randomly drawn into their bracket – meaning there can be championship-caliber matchups as early as Round 1.
(At the time of this publishing, the Women’s Freestyle brackets have yet to be drawn.)
One final reminder for the tournament ahead: international repechage rules.
Repechage is the international version of ‘consolations’ and differs from the format folks may be used to in America. In international wrestling, the only way a losing athlete can wrestle back for third/bronze is if the athlete who defeated them advances all the way to the final.
Now, to the wrestlers!
Felicity Taylor – unseeded at 53 kilograms (September 17-18)
Taylor – a Spillville, Iowa native – makes her Senior World Championships debut after besting fellow Hawkeye (and former teammate) Brianna Gonzalez at Final X.
She has twice competed at the U23 level – taking fifth in 2022 and ninth in 2019. And she’s also grown increasingly familiar with international competition over the past eight months thanks to a pair of overseas Ranking Series events.
Those events also familiarized the 2024 NCWWC champion with several athletes who’ll be in her loaded 53-kilogram bracket in Croatia.
Seven different wrestlers in the 23-woman field have previously medaled at the Olympics and/or World Championships. And there’s plenty of depth behind them, too.
Based upon incoming credentials, Taylor is considered a longshot to reach the podium.
Having said that, she appears to have made significant jumps en route to making her first Senior World team – now training out of Big Game Wrestling Club based in the Iowa City area.
If Taylor can get a decent draw, it’s not impossible to envision a potential path to competing for a medal. But as you’re about to learn, there’s a plethora of dangerous competitors at this weight who could limit the likelihood of such good fortune.
Top eight seeds – 53 kilograms
Both #1 Lucia Yepez (Ecuador) and #2 Hyogyong Choe (North Korea) enter these World Championships fresh off Olympic medals is Paris last summer.
Yepez (silver) also has a 2023 World bronze to her name. Meanwhile, Choe backed up her Paris performance with an impressive title at the Asian Championships in March.
Moving to the numbers 3-4 seeds, Taylor has wrestled both athletes as recently as the July Ranking Series event in Hungary.
There, Taylor fell to #4 Antim Antim (India) via 10-0 technical fall but would wrestle back to win the third-place bout in an equally impressive 11-0 performance over #3 Zeynep Yetgil.
Both Antim (2023 World bronze) and Yetgil finished outside the medals in Paris. Both are also well-versed in high-profile international competition – having racked up age-level World medals long before their debut on the Senior stage.
As an unseeded entry, Taylor figures to draw a top-eight seed in the early going. The best-case scenario could well be that it’s Yetgil, given their previous meeting.
Moving down the seed list, #5 Natalia Malysheva (UWW) has a career-best finish of fifth at Senior Worlds. The veteran was also third at the European Championships earlier this year.
Germany’s Annika Wendle – the #6 seed – fell just short of a bronze medal in Paris but has never finished higher than ninth at the World Championships.
At #7, three-time Olympian Maria Prevolaraki (Greece) has been competing at this event since 2014 – twice earning bronze (2017, 2022).
And rounding out the seeded entries is #8 Jonna Malmgren (Sweden).
The two-time European champion (and two-time age-level World champion) has been knocking at the door of even more prestigious hardware for a while now. She’s lost in the bronze-medal bout at each of her past two World Championships (2022-23) and finished seventh at the Paris Olympics.
Best of the rest – 53 kilograms
As impressive as many of the seeded athletes are at 53kg, it’s an unseeded competitor who enters this tournament as the heavy favorite.
Why? Well, because Japan’s Haruna Murayama Okuno wins every World Championship event in which she competes.
(Seriously.)
Her first title came at the U17 age level back in 2016, and she’s a perfect 8/8 ever since – including a trio of Senior-level gold medals won in 2017, 2018 and 2023.
She did take an uncharacteristic loss earlier this year at the Asian Championships. However, that match was up at 55 kilograms.
Taylor and Okuno also have history against one another, with Okuno twice besting the Hawkeye at U23 Worlds – by fall in 2019 and 11-1 tech. fall in 2022.
Elsewhere in the bracket, China’s Jin Zhang – a 2024 World silver medalist at 55kg – looms as a major hurdle. So too, will Poland’s Roksana Zasina – a senior-level staple with a 2017 bronze medal to her name.
Macey Kilty – #2 at 65 kilograms (September 16-17)
The next Hawkeye on this list owns the most Senior World medals amongst the quartet.
That’s because Macey Kilty has capped deep tournament runs with bronze (2024) and silver (2023) the past two years. And it’s a huge reason she enters the 2025 edition as one of the athletes favored to reach the top of the podium.
Since committing to Iowa last summer, Kilty’s only losses have come against elite competition on the international stage.
She breezed through her lone college season and did the same at Final X back in June.
Consistency and relentlessness are her calling cards. And it’s why she’s medaled in eight of her nine appearances at the World Championships (across all age levels).
She’ll be hoping to do so again this week, and in the process earn her first-ever Senior World title.
It’s going to take one heck of an effort to make that happen, too, because 65 kilograms is arguably the deepest women’s weight at the tournament.
Top eight seeds – 65 kilograms
Standing prominently in Kilty’s (potential) path is Japan’s #1 Miwa Morikawa.
Morikawa has medaled at each of the past four World Championships – including gold in 2022. She’s not unbeatable, however, taking previous losses to multiple wrestlers in this field.
One of those was nearly to Kilty, who fell to the Japanese star via narrow 2-1 decision back in 2019 with a U20 World title on the line.
Among other top contenders, #5 Irina Ringaci (Moldova), #7 Grace Bullen (Norway) and #8 Iryna Koliadenko (Ukraine) stand out.
Ringaci won gold in 2021 and bronze in 2022-23 (at 68kg). She also has a pair of recent victories over Morikawa, plus a 5-4 win over Kilty from the 2023 U23 World semifinals.
Koliadenko’s claim to fame is back-to-back Olympic medals (at 62kg), as well as World Championship hardware from 2023 (bronze) and 2019 (silver).
Fortunately for the American, Morikawa/Ringaci/Koliadenko will all be on the opposite half of the bracket – meaning Kilty could only face one of them at the most (in the gold medal bout).
That’s why the Norwegian draws my immediate attention instead. Slated to hit in the quarterfinals if seeds hold, Kilty and Grace Bullen wrestled an absolute barnburner just a few months ago at the Ranking Series event in Hungary:
Bullen wrestles a thrilling, explosive style that makes for some wild back-and-forth matches. It’s helped her to three World/Olympic medals over the past three years, as well as wins over the likes of Kilty and the aforementioned Ringaci.
But it has also cost her on occasion, notably in the Olympic semifinal, when Bullen was taken feet to back and pinned in the final seconds of a match she’d controlled against Japan.
If Kilty can make the proper adjustments in their projected quarterfinal, neither of the other seeded wrestlers on her half of the bracket are quite so scary.
#3 Enkhjin Tuvshinjargal (Mongolia) and #6 Elma Zeidlere (Latvia) have a career-best finish of ninth place in four trips to the senior World Championships.
Kilty also owns a recent 10-4 win over the #4 seed, Kadriye Kocak Aksoy (Turkiye) – whom I wouldn’t expect to advance beyond a quarterfinal against Ringaci on the topside.
Best of the rest – 65 kilograms
Unlike many of the other weight classes, it feels like most of the real contenders at 65kg are among the top eight seeds.
However, a notable exception could be 2023 World champion Qi Zhang (China).
I say ‘could be’ because Zhang won that title at 59 kilograms – more than 13 pounds below the weight at which she’ll compete in Croatia.
Still, a World champ is a World champ. And Zhang’s most recent data point at 65kg was a third-place finish at the Asian Championships – with her lone defeat an 8-4 decision against Morikawa.
With just 17 registered entries, 65kg is one of the smaller fields at these World Championships. But one last name to file away is India’s Vaishnavi Patil.
India is a very strong women’s wrestling nation and has really been on the rise in recent years – especially at the U17/U20/U23 age levels.
Patil is a relative unknown on the international scene, but if the 22-year-old made Team India my educated guess is that she’s pretty darn good.
Kennedy Blades – #4 at 68 kilograms (September 17-18)
I know I said earlier that 65 kilograms could be the best/deepest weight of the tournament, but 68kg has a strong argument of its own.
Four of the 24 wrestlers in the field have won a previous World title, and another four own Senior World medals.
And yet, the favorite by many people to win the whole thing isn’t one of those eight.
Enter Kennedy Blades – ever heard of her?
The reigning Olympic silver medalist (way up at 76kg) has bad intentions at a brand-new weight class.
Like Kilty, Blades became a Hawkeye last summer and has performed nothing but exceptionally ever since.
The Chicagoan bonus’d her way through a collegiate schedule, dominated a pair of Ranking Series Events and won a Senior Pan-American title – those latter two accolades helping her to earn the #4 seed in Zagreb.
She hasn’t lost since that 3-1 Olympic final against Japan. And now she’s ready to bring her unique blend of length, speed and skill to an excellent (and largely unfamiliar) crop of competitors.
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Whether it’s the best/deepest weight or not, 68kg holds the most intrigue for me because of all the dynamics at play.
We’ll get to the other contenders in a moment, but it’s also worth noting that despite her fame and prowess on the mat this will still be Blades’ debut at the Senior World Championships. In fact, she ‘only’ has one World title in her career to date – of the U20 variety all the way back in 2021.
That’s not to say Blades is overhyped by any means (she isn’t). It merely illustrates that there’s still so much more to learn about this incredible athlete despite how familiar she’s become in the greater wrestling landscape.
Top eight seeds – 68 kilograms
Due to her descending two entire weight classes, Blades exposure to the competition at 68kg is both limited and very recent.
Two of those familiar foes will be on her half of the bracket, however, in #5 Noémi Szabados (Hungary) and #8 Adela Hanzlickova (Czechia).
Blades could face Szabados – whom she’s teched twice this year – in the quarterfinals. While a matchup with Hanzlickova (World bronze in 2024 at 72kg) couldn’t materialize until the semis.
Their February meeting ended quickly via first-period fall.
Also on the topside is #1 seed Buse Tosun (Türkiye).
Tosun owns four career World/Olympic medals – three bronze + 2023 gold – but she also lost 6-5 to American Brooklyn Hays back in July.
Hays was the Final X runner up to Blades at 68kg but was nowhere near beating the Hawkeye in three separate matches this summer.
Flipping to the bottom half of the bracket, #2 Meerim Zhumanazarova (Kyrgyzstan) was the runner up in Paris to American star Amit Elor, losing 3-0. Zhumanazarova also medaled at the Tokyo Games in 2021 (bronze) but has finished 10th or worse in 4/5 World Championship appearances to date.
The lone exception? A World title back in 2021.
#3 Sol Gum Pak (North Korea) is set to make her World Championship debut after finishing fifth in Paris.
Perhaps just as likely to emerge from the bottom half are #6 Kateryna Zelenykh (Romania) or #7 Delgermaa Enkhsaikhan (Mongolia).
Both own recent World silver medals – Zelenykh in 2024, where she defeated Macey Kilty via 11-4 decision (at 65kg), Enkhsaikhan in 2023.
Best of the rest – 68 kilograms
As I’ve written before, the hammers don’t stop with the top eight seeds – and perhaps nowhere is that truer than 68kg.
Because for as great as Blades is – and I expect her to perform as such this week – I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if you told me at least one of these unseeded athletes deserved co-favorite status.
Chief among them is Japan’s Ami Ishii, the reigning World champion at 72kg.
11 months ago, Ishii bested a field that included Kylie Welker – blowing open what had been a tight match against the Hawkeye to the tune of a 12-1 tech. fall. Now she’s back down at 68kg, where she won silver in 2022 (plus U23 gold last fall).
As the women’s superpower in international wrestling, you’d be a fool to ever overlook a Japanese athlete, much less one as credentialed as Ami Ishii.
And if one reigning World champ weren’t enough, how about another?
Say hello to Jia Long (China), who enters the tournament unseeded despite earning gold a year ago at 65kg, as well as silver at the same weight in 2022.
Perhaps irrelevant to both Blades and the present competition, Long does own a 3-2 win over Macey Kilty from 2020.
Her accolades indicate she’s a major threat, but how will the bump up in weight class potentially change the equation? We’ll have to wait and see.
Also among the unseeded is 2021 World bronze medalist Khanum Velieva (UWW). She too, has a win over Kilty – albeit from even further back in a 2018 U20 World final.
And finally, make note of Yuliana Yaneva (Bulgaria) as well. She’s yet to medal on the World/Olympic stage, but she did at least hang in there against a nicked-up Blades at the July Ranking Series in Hungary – losing 6-2 in the final.
Kylie Welker – #8 at 76 kilograms (September 16-17)
Our fourth and final Hawkeye of the bunch, Kylie Welker heads to Croatia with gold very much on her mind (and within reach).
This marks Welker’s third Senior World team, although it’s her first competing at 76 kilograms.
A year ago, the Iowa junior earned bronze at non-Olympic Worlds down at 72kg – the same weight at which she made her Senior debut as a teenager back in 2021.
It feels like now is her time to stand atop the podium.
The 21-year-old Wisconsinite has been on the ascent ever since a disappointing Olympic Trials performance in April of 2024.
Among Welker’s accomplishments in the interim:
- Two pins in one day over four-time World medalist Zhamila Bakbergenova (Kazakhstan) at the 2024 Grand Prix of Spain.
- A dominant finals sweep of college rival (and 2024 U23 World champ) Yelena Makoyed at the 2024 Senior World team trials.
- A U23 World title at 72kg, during which she outscored her opponents by a combined margin of 31-1.
- Senior World bronze at 72kg, with the lone defeat coming to the eventual World champ.
- An undefeated college season during which she allowed zero points and never wrestled beyond the first period.
- A 2025 Senior Pan-American title, capped by a pair of wins over world-class foes.
- A 6-0 record between the US Open and Final X – outscoring her opponents 52-2.
By all measures, this Hawkeye seems primed and ready to prove herself as the very best in the world.
But ‘the world’ isn’t going to just hand over that title without putting up a serious fight.
Top eight seeds – 76 kilograms
#1 seed Aiperi Medit Kyzy (Kyrgyzstan) lines up as Welker’s first major (seeded) test – presumably in the quarterfinals.
Kyzy has competed at seven different World/Olympic tournaments but only medaled once – earning bronze in 2021.
However, during fifth place finishes at each of the past two Olympics she’s lost narrow matches on both occasions to eventual American silver medalists – 8-6 in Paris to Kennedy Blades and 3-2 in Tokyo to Adeline Gray (a five-time World champ).
Win that matchup, and the favored semifinal (by seed) would be a bout against either #4 Davaanasan Enkh Amar (Mongolia) or #5 Anastasiya Alpyeyeva (Ukraine).
A 2023 World silver medalist at 72kg – Amar finished ninth in Tokyo last summer in her first-ever foray at 76kg. She also took seventh back in March at the Asian Championships.
Alpyeyeva has also competed often in her career at 72kg, including late 2024 when she finished behind Welker in brackets at both Senior and U23 Worlds.
The two met in the U23 semis, with Welker pulling out a 3-1 decision en route to her World title.
Alpyeyeva has yet to medal at a Senior World Championships, but she recently won gold for the first time at the European Championships – perhaps an indication of her upward trajectory.
On the other half of the draw will be a pair of Pan-American competitors – #2 Milaimy Marin (Cuba) and #3 Genesis Reasco (Ecuador).
Marin earned Olympic bronze last summer, losing a 4-3 quarterfinal to Kennedy Blades (after defeating her 13-4 a month prior). Reasco (fifth in Paris) has wrestled Welker on three different occasions to date (going 1-2).
The most recent meeting between the two was all Welker – who rolled to an early 10-0 tech. fall at the Senior Pan-American Championships in May.
Both #6 Elmira Syzdykova (Kazakhstan) and #7 Nodoko Yamamoto (Japan) feel far less likely to emerge as a potential gold medal opponent for Welker.
Syzdykova is a long-time vet who hasn’t medaled at Senior Worlds since 2016 (bronze).
Meanwhile, Yamamoto trained in Iowa City this past winter with a couple of her Japanese teammates.
(Ironically, Welker was simultaneously training overseas in Japan at the time.)
But unlike the rest of the Japanese contingent competing in Croatia this week, Yamamoto – a two-time age-level bronze medalist – is not viewed as a serious contender for gold.
Best of the rest – 76 kilograms
Two more names are worth mentioning when it comes to 76kg – each of whom could be drawn into the field anywhere and throw a wrench in things for some of the seeded athletes.
For China, Qiandegenchagan (all one name) was a last-minute entry are swapping with another athlete. And though she went 0-1 in each of her previous trips to Senior Worlds (both at 72kg in 2022-23), she has several notable wins of late at 76kg which suggest she’s a real threat this week.
Last year, Qiandegenchagan won a Ranking Series event that included victories over U23 World champ Yelena Makoyed (12-2), four-time World medalist Mae Epp (5-4) and another 5-4 win over China’s eventual Olympic rep at the weight.
The year before, she lost to this week’s #1 seed, Medet Kyzy by 6-3 decision, topped #5 Alpyeyeva (8-3) and beat India’s Priya Priya, 10-1.
That last result is notable because Priya is the final entry I’ve earmarked.
The young Indian has starred at age-level Worlds, racking up three golds (U17 twice, U20 once) plus another pair of silver medals – all since 2021.
Priya was also fifth at the 2024 (senior) Asian Championships and third in 2023.
There aren’t many (non-Japanese) athletes entered in this tournament who possess more impressive resumes at age 20 than she does.
Short time
A reminder that each of these four Hawkeyes will begin their World Championship run(s) at 3:30 a.m. (Central Time) on back-to-back days – Kilty/Welker on the 16th and Blades/Taylor on the 17th.
Should they reach the gold medal match – or lose to an opponent who does – they’ll wrestle again the following morning.
I’ll have as much live coverage on social media as I can possibly manage during the week ahead. Additionally, I’ll be posting regular updates on Hawkeye Report in both the Wrestling Forum and the Swarm Lounge.
Hopefully I’ve done my job getting you all prepped and ready for the incredible week of wrestling that awaits us.
Thank you as always for reading. And if you haven’t already, be sure to also check out my Men’s Freestyle preview for the Hawkeyes – which was published on the site yesterday.
‘Till next time.
