Team USA Women Leading Team Race After Day 1

Check out the team race for women's freestyle at the end of the first day of the 2021 Junior World Championships.

Aug 18, 2021 by Jon Kozak

Team USA Women Leading Team Race After Day 1

The first day of women’s wrestling concluded in Ufa, Russia at the Junior World championships and five of the ten weights have wrestled through the semi-finals. While there is still a lot of wrestling to influence the team race, take a look below to see the current women’s freestyle standings.

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2021 Junior World Championships

Team USA Leading The Charge

Thanks to Emily Shilson, Amit Elor, and Kylie Welker, Team USA is in first place at the end of the first day of wrestling. All three women sit in the junior world finals and will wrestle tomorrow (Thursday, August 19th) for gold. Welker and Elor were dominant in their early matches to get to the finals; winning every match by tech or pin. Shilson, on the other hand, opened up with two hard fought victories over Varakina (BLR 6-3) and Aleksandrova (RUS-10-7) before teching her semi-final opponent.

Watch Emily Shilson come from behind to make the semi-finals:

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Take a look below to see the current team scores in women’s freestyle:

United States	60
Russia	50
Belarus	50
India	30
Turkey	30
Mongolia	30
Kyrgyzstan	20
Azerbaijan	10
Hungary	10
Slovakia	10

Can USA Hold Their Lead

Russia and Belarus also had three semi-finalists on the first day but were only able to put two through to the gold medal match. That leaves both of those countries just 10 points behind Team USA. On top of that, there are still five weights yet to wrestle tomorrow and Team USA will have to match the performance they put up today to remain ahead of the chasing countries. Jaslynn Gallegos (53kg), Claire DiCugno (57kg), Korina Blades (62kg), Alara Boyd (65kg), and Kennedy Blades (68kg) are the remaining women who will take the mat to try to attain the team title. For USA to lock the title in, they will likely need at least 3 total champions and 7-8 total medalists. The title won't likely be decided until the final day of wrestling - Friday, August 20th.

Check out Kylie Welker's Semi-Final win:

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We’ll continue to update you every step of the way as the team race unfolds at the junior world championships. For full match results and video links, check out FloArena HERE.