Leydecker Earns Gold at U20 World Championships

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – First-year University of Iowa women's wrestler Everest Leydecker (55 kg) earned her second consecutive gold medal at the U20 World Championships on Thursday in Bratislava, Slovakia. Taylor Whiting (53 kg) finished fifth on Wednesday, Bella Williams (62 kg) finished 10th on Thursday and Karlee Brooks (57 kg) has been pulled into repechage with a chance to wrestle for third on Friday. 

Leydecker went 4-0 in her bracket, winning her first two matches against Hansika Lamba (India) and Valeryia Mikitsich (Belarus) via fall on Wednesday to make her way into the semifinal. She then shut out 2026 U20 Asian silver medalist Meilin Zhou (China) with an 8-0 decision to punch her ticket to the finals, which she won via fall in 5:15 against Nana Kozuka (Japan). 

Whiting, Williams and Brooks were all pulled into repechage with a chance to wrestle back for third. After wrestling back for bronze with a 10-0 repechage tech fall over Muskan (India), Whiting fell to fifth with a loss to Yuxuan Li (China). Williams made it to the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion, Sakura Onishi (Japan) and Barbara Bager (Hungary) to finish 10th. Brooks won her first two matches, 10-0 and 12-2, respectively, before losing her quarterfinal.