Shilson Makes History in Belgrade, Welker Bronze

Shilson and Welker. Photos courtesy of Tony Rotundo / WrestlersAreWarriors.com

by Derek Levendusky
Twitter: @AWWderek

BELGRADE, Serbia – Emily Shilson not only won her third age level gold medal, now boasting gold medals from Cadet Worlds, Junior Worlds, and U23 Worlds, but she became the first American woman ever to win a U23 gold. In the finals, 50 kg Shilson secured the title with a fall over India’s Shivani Pawar after falling behind early 2-0.

Shilson has been on the national scene and in the national spotlight for years now, winning six Fargo titles and two Cadet world medals in high school, parlaying that into three national titles in college. Her star continues to rise on the international scene as she’s now won a Junior and U23 world title this year.

High school senior Kylie Welker (76 kg) continues to amaze, winning bronze in Belgrade after winning a Junior world title in August. Welker also made the Olympic Trials finals, falling to 6x world champion Adeline Gray in a best-of-three. The young Wisconsin star also made the Senior World Team this year, defeating another high school phenom, Kennedy Blades, at World Team Trials. Welker has put together one of the best years ever by an American high school wrestler. She defeated Ecuador’s Genesis Reasco Valdez in the bronze match with a first period fall.
At 72 kg, Kayla Marano has made the most of her opportunity as the replacement for Kennedy Blades by earning a spot in the bronze match tomorrow. She’ll face the winner of the repechage match between India’s Divya Kakran and Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Zaitseva.

At 68 kg, after a dramatic last-second win in her repechage match, Alyvia Fiske came oh-so-close to winning bronze, but ultimately fell 3-3 to Ukraine’s Oksana Chudyk. Fiske was up 3-0 at the break, but surrendered a shot clock point and a takedown in the second period to give up the criteria lead.

53 kg Ronna Heaton, 57 kg Amanda Martinez, 62 kg Emma Bruntil, and 65 kg Ashlynn Ortega all went 1-1 and needed the opponents to whom they lost to win their semis. It was a string of bad luck for Team USA as the round went badly, with all four opponents losing their semis, eliminating all four Americans from their medal hopes.

55 kg Alex Hedrick took seventh and 59 kg Michaela Beck took ninth as they also were not pulled back into repechage after their losses on Wednesday.

In the team race, Russia leads with 65 after five weights, USA is currently in second with 62, and Ukraine is in third with 51.

Kayla Marano will wrestle for bronze tomorrow on FloWrestling at 1 p.m. EST.