Penn State senior Levi Haines will wrestle for Senior World golds Monday after perfect Sunday: Recap and results
Penn State wrestling and the Nittany Lions Wrestling Club will have a finalist at the 2025 Senior World Wrestling Championships. A day after Nittany Lion freshman PJ Duke went 1-1 and finished off the medal stand in his first try at the tournament at 70 kilograms, Haines is making his debut at it at 79 kilograms (174.1 pounds). And, he will wrestle for gold while doing it. The Nittany Lion was a perfect 4-0 on Sunday. He won his opener by decision, his round two match by technical fall, and his quarterfinal match with former World champ Akhmed Usmanov 3-2 thanks to a takedown and penalty point with two seconds left. Haines then reversed a 1-0 first period deficit in the semifinals to beat Suldkhuu Olonbayar of Mongolia 4-1 in the 79-kilogram semifinals.
Haines will face Georgios Kougiomtsidis of Greece in Monday’s finals. That session starts at Noon ET. He is a former Olympian and multi-time U23 champ.
Read a full recap of Haines’ tournament so far below.
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Levi Haines is going to the finals
09/14/2025 10:11:36 AMPenn State has a finalist at the 2025 Senior World Championships. Senior Levi Haines beat Suldkhuu Olonbayar of Mongolia 4-1 in the 79-kilogram semifinals to earn a spot in Monday’s gold medal match.
RBY is back in repechage
09/14/2025 09:45:53 AMThe tweet below means Roman Bravo-Young will be in the repechage tournament with a chance to win bronze while wrestling for Mexico at 57 kilograms on Monday.
Who will Haines face in the semifinals?
09/14/2025 07:58:04 AMHaines will face Suldkhuu Olonbayar of Mongolia for the right to wrestle tomorrow for a gold medal at 79 kilograms. The Team USA wrestler in his first Senior World tournament. Olonbayar has been here before: He was fifth a year ago and finished third at the 2025 Senior Asian Championships before getting to this point.
The semis start at 10:30 a.m. ET.
How did Haines do in the quarterfinals?
09/14/2025 07:45:00 AMTrailing 2023 Senior World champ Akhmed Usmanov 1-0 after the first period due to not scoring while on the shot clock, Haines was again put on the clock in the second period despite clearly being the aggressor and leading in the shots attempted category. No matter, the result of that was no score for Haines and another point for Usmanov. However, Haines’ efforts would not go unrewarded. He scored a match-winning takedown with two seconds, would have won on criteria regardless, but got an an extra point when Usmanov’s challenge of the scoring sequence was denied to ultimately win 3-2.
That win was the definition of effort being awarded for Haines.
RBY heads to repechage
09/14/2025 07:43:17 AMThe former Nittany Lion, who is wrestling at 57 kilograms for Mexico, dropped a 4-3 decision to Han of North Korea in the quarterfinals. He is on the opposite side of that weight class’ bracket from Team USA member Spencer Lee. So, either he or RBY will get pulled back into repechage via the semifinal results later to wrestle for a shot at bronze tomorrow. But, both will not get that opportunity.
Mat assignments
09/14/2025 06:59:55 AMWhen the quarterfinal round begins shortly, Haines is on deck on Mat D. RBY is on deck on Mat C.
Former Penn State wrestler Roman Bravo-Young is also in the quarters
09/14/2025 06:59:18 AMHe is competing for Mexico in the 57-kilogram division and is 2-0 this morning.
Haines is 2 for 2 and into the quarters
09/14/2025 05:49:33 AMThe Nittany Lions won his second round match by technical fall, 10–0. He’s into the quarterfinals.
Haines wins his opener
09/14/2025 05:48:45 AMThe Nittany Lion erased a 2-0 deficit to win his first match 5-2. He’ll be up in Round 2 soon.
Previewing Haines’ first match
09/13/2025 09:15:28 PMHaines will be on Mat B when his match is up. By our count, he is the ninth bout of the day on that particular mat. It’s why we think it’ll be around 5:30 a.m. ET when he competes, even though the session starts an hour earlier.
The Penn State wrestler’s first match is opposite Khidir Kurban A Saipudinov of Bahrain. The winner gets a to-be-determined opponent in the second round. Saipudinov won the Polyák Imre & Varga János Memorial earlier this year and was second at Asian Senior Worlds. At Senior Worlds a year ago, he finished 26th.
Haines is on the same side of the bracket as Vladimeri Gamkrelidze of Georgia, who was fifth at U23 Worlds last year and third at Senior European Worlds this year. He will likely meet Russia’s Usmanov, who won gold at Senior European Worlds, in round two.
Recapping Worlds Day 1 and Penn State freshman PJ Duke’s performance
09/13/2025 09:17:52 PMTeam USA has one finalist today who earned his spot during Saturday’s opening day. Zahid Valencia will wrestle Hayato Ishiguro of Japan for gold.
On the Penn State side of things, Duke won his first match 11-0 but lost his second. His opponent later lost in the semifinals, which eliminated him from the tournament.
“Fate didn’t turn his way as returning World champion Nurkozha Kaipanov of Kazakhstan, who beat Duke 11-7 earlier in the day, was defeated in the semifinals,” USA Wrestling writes in a recap. “Duke finished with a 1-1 record at his first Senior World Championships.”