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Welker's gold leads strong showing for Hawkeyes at U23 Worlds

by: Tanner Lafever23 hours agoTannerLafever
Kylie Welker U23 Worlds (2025)
For the second-consecutive year, Kylie Welker earned the joy of a gold medal at the U23 World Championships. (United World Wrestling/Amirreza Aliasgari)

A pair of Hawkeyes spent the better part of last week in Novi Sad, Serbia for the U23 World Wrestling Championships.

Having since concluded their competition(s), both will make the 5000-plus mile return trip home having either set or matched their career-best finish on the World stage.

For Kylie Welker, the tournament’s heaviest weight class (76 kilograms) proved to be of little resistance.

Not only did the Hawkeye superstar crush her competition – winning 4/4 bouts via technical fall – but she did so with haste.

Welker’s average time on the mat was just north of 103 seconds. Add it all up and her 6:53 total barely exceeded the regulation allotment for any single match.

It took her that long to win four of them.

By earning gold last week, the 21-year-old Welker now has three age-level World titles to her name. She’s also now paired U23 gold with Senior bronze each of the past two years – demonstrating a consistency and dominance that has firmly entrenched her among the very best wrestlers in the world at 76kg.

For the second-consecutive year, Kylie Welker celebrated a dominant U23 World title. (Photo Credit: Tony Rotundo/USA Wrestling)

As for her Hawkeye teammate, the smaller (but no less mighty) Brianna Gonzalez came up just short of returning stateside with her own medal in hand.

Gonzalez went 2-2 in Serbia, battling through a hellacious draw at 53kg. Her only two losses came against the eventual champion from Japan, plus a 2024 Olympian from Nigeria.

Neither defeat – the latter in the bronze medal match – will sit well with a competitor like Gonzalez. But with her fifth-place finish, she’ll also return to Iowa City knowing she’s taken another step in the right direction.

Between the two Hawkeyes, Welker/Gonzalez combined for 35/106 points for Team USA – helping the Americans to a narrow third-place finish behind India and Japan.

Here’s how they did it.

When a freight train is coming through, you’d better get off the tracks

Kylie Welker sure felt like a sizable favorite entering these U23 World Championships.

In fact, I said as much in my tournament preview.

What I didn’t quite anticipate, however, was for the gap to be as wide as this.

It wasn’t just the speed with which Welker wrecked her competition, which I noted in the open. It was how it looked while she did it.

This was physical, technical and mental domination at its finest – and it didn’t matter who stood in front of her.

The biggest test of the tournament (at least based on past credentials) came in the first round.

But even that turned out to be no contest whatsoever:

56 seconds later, Welker was getting her hand raised.

For context, her opponent – India’s three-time age-level World champion, Priya Priya – would go on to earn bronze with ease, winning her two other matches by a combined score of 18-1.

But her demolition at the hands of Welker was just a sign of things to come.

Up next was a quarterfinal against Canada’s Nyla Burgess – a recent Senior Pan-American silver medalist.

And somehow, it was even more short-lived than the previous bout.

Welker packed a five-point suplex and three leg laces into just 37 seconds of action – and with it, went flying into the semifinals.

There, the longest and most ‘competitive’ match of her tournament would be held.

Facing Mexico’s Edna Jimenez Villalba, Welker jumped out to an immediate 8-0 lead thanks to a feet-to-back takedown and two turns.

But Villalba – a 2025 U20 Pan-Am champ (and 2024 Senior Pan-Am silver medalist) – wouldn’t go down quietly.

With Welker in on another shot that appeared all but certain to end the match, Villalba hit a four-point counter-throw on the edge to stay alive.

After another Welker takedown made it 10-4, Villalba hit a nice ankle pick to reduce the margin to four yet again. But Welker would reverse the position and tack on a pair of ankle laces to reextend her lead (15-6) before intermission – then scored a quick step out after the break to end the match.

It’s awfully telling when someone’s ‘least’ dominant performance at a World Championship event was still a 16-6 technical fall (3:21).

All that remained for Welker was a 24-hour wait until the gold medal match. And once it arrived, it may as well have been a drilling session in the Iowa practice room.

On four different instances, Welker violently snapped Valeriia Tirfonova’s head toward the mat. And all four times, she’d follow with a takedown of the returning U23 World bronze medalist.

The last time, a subsequent gut wrench polished off the 10-0 technical fall – and with it, another U23 World title.

Reflecting upon dominance

As I noted in the introduction, this victory marks the third age-level World title of Welker’s still incredibly young international career.

It also means she’s now medaled in 7/8 World Championship appearances – regardless of the age group:

  • Senior Worlds = bronze in 2025 (76kg), bronze in 2024 (72kg), 10th in 2021 (72kg)
  • U23 Worlds = gold in 2025 (76kg), gold in 2024 (72kg), bronze in 2021 (72kg)
  • U20 Worlds = gold in 2021 (76kg)
  • U17 Worlds = bronze in 2019 (61kg)

That consistency of performance is remarkable for an athlete who’s yet to turn 22 years old.

It speaks to someone who continues to raise not only the ceiling, but also the floor of what they can accomplish – two equally important hallmarks of an elite athlete.

Welker assessed her own performance in an interview with USA Wrestling after this latest accomplishment:

Next up – she’ll enter the college season with both a number one ranking and back-to-back national titles to defend.

Here’s praying for whomever has the misfortune of standing in her way…

Bri battles from start to finish in fifth-place effort

Affectionately referred to as ‘Bri’ by her teammates and coaches, there’s nothing affectionate about the way Brianna Gonzalez competes on the wrestling mat.

The hard-nosed, hard-charging Hawkeye entered these U23 World Championships with that very same approach – and it nearly earned her a bronze medal.

Gonzalez (53 kilograms) opened her tournament with a dominant win over Vestina Daniseviciute – a Lithuanian with previous Senior World experience.

But with that victory in hand, all that remained were heavy hitters (and slugfest matches) from there on out.

In the quarterfinals, Gonzalez struggled to break down Japan’s Haruna Morikawa – a returning U20 World silver medalist. And while the Hawkeye seemed to build into the match after intermission, a 6-0 first period deficit (incl. a takedown-to-turn with 0:40 left) dug a hole that she never really threatened to dig out of.

It should be noted, Morikawa did that to pretty much everyone in Novi Sad – allowing just two points against her en route to 53kg gold.

With Morikawa reaching the finals, Gonzalez was pulled into repechage the following morning. Her first opponent would be Nataliia Klivchutska (Ukraine) – a returning U23 bronze medalist.

For six minutes, the two engaged in heavy-handed combat.

Gonzalez opened the scoring with a first-period shot clock point. Then after intermission, Klivchutska produced the first deep shot of the bout – earning a step out to take a 1-1 lead on criteria.

With 2:00 to go, Gonzalez was put on the activity clock.

She’d respond almost immediately.

After driving Klivchutska to the edge with an underhook, the Hawkeye was nearly countered out-of-bounds. But Gonzalez tight-roped the boundary, circled herself toward the center, then smartly lifted a grounded Klivchutska off all fours for a step out point of her own.

The maneuver not only earned Gonzalez a point (and the lead) but nullified the ticking activity clock.

For the final 1:42, the Hawkeye defended – but importantly, did not cede ground. And for her efforts, she earned a shot at her first-career World medal.

Unfortunately, the bronze medal match would not go in Gonzalez’s favor.

Facing Nigeria’s Christianah Ogunsanya – a 2024 Olympian – a size/horsepower discrepancy was evident from the start.

After two early step outs came from the Nigerian’s own attacks, it was all about counter offense from there.

Gonzalez would shoot and Ogunsanya – who currently attends NAIA’s William Penn (IA) after enrolling last winter – would defend.

Gonzalez (red) repeatedly found herself stymied by the defenses of the bigger, more experienced Christianah Ogunsanya. (Photo Credit: Tony Rotundo/USA Wrestling)

On three of those occasions – including a deep shot from Gonzalez with the score 2-0 – the Nigerian ultimately countered the position for a takedown of her own.

The end result? An 8-0 decision that will sting, but an overall accomplishment that should be lauded.

Last September, Gonzalez went 0-1 and did not place at U20 Worlds.

13 months later, here she was, battling through a loaded bracket all the way to the bronze medal match.

Will this satisfy a competitor like Gonzalez? Hardly.

But it’s unquestionably a positive building block as she enters the 2025-26 college season – where she’ll be one of the favorites (amongst another loaded field) to win a national title at 117 pounds.

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