Iowa wrestling - U20 World Championships preview
Let it never be said that the wrestling gods aren’t a decent and gracious bunch – at least on the precipice of a week like this when our early-September appetite is about to be satiated by seven-consecutive days of the best wrestling this planet’s young, burgeoning talent has to offer.
It’s time for the U20 World Championships, folks!
The collective Iowa wrestling program(s) are about to be represented by the largest assembly of Hawkeye participants of any year in recent memory – and more than likely the largest in school history.
That’s what happens when you’ve got powerhouse teams on both the men’s and women’s side of the ledger.
Not only will Iowa’s six representatives this week be the most of any college in the country, but it’s also the only school with an affiliated competitor in all three of the wrestling styles being contested – (men’s) Greco-Roman, Women’s Freestyle and Men’s Freestyle.
But before we dive into the half-dozen Hawkeyes set to take the mat in Pontevedra, Spain, here’s how/when you can catch all the action:
Get with the Flo and set your alarms
The entirety of the U20 World Championships will be streamed live on FloWrestling.
Flo’s central hub for the event can be found at this link – including schedules, brackets, results, match archives and a ‘watch’ tab that will take you directly to any bouts that may be ongoing at that particular time.
However, as far as schedules go, an even handier Hawkeye-specific guide can be found below courtesy of Mike Smit (@mikesmit49 on Twitter) – whom I consider to be the go-to authority on international wrestling schedules for Team USA.
I’ve gone ahead and highlighted the six Hawkeyes who will be in action – Otto Black, Naomi Simon, Brianna Gonzalez, Cadence Diduch, Reese Larramendy and Ben Kueter – and encourage everyone to refer back to this chart throughout the week ahead when it comes to competition dates/times for each of the athletes.
To make things even easier to follow with this preview, we’ll go in chronological order of when each Hawkeye is set to take the mat this week, meaning first up is the lone Greco-Roman participant among the bunch.
Otto Black (Greco – 63 kilograms) *competes September 2-3
Black was a late addition to Iowa’s 2024 recruiting class – announcing his commitment to the Hawkeyes back in mid-April along with a stated intention of continuing to pursue his Greco World/Olympic dreams.
As of yet, the 2024 state champion out of Parker, Colorado does not appear on Iowa’s official 2024-25 roster, meaning he could very well be delaying enrollment for at least a year to specifically train in the Greco-Roman discipline.
Regardless, he’ll be a threat to reach the podium this week in Spain, having previously taken fifth at U17 Worlds in 2021 thanks to a pair of razor-thin defeats in both his semifinal and bronze medal matches.
Black has been on a tear thus far in 2024, dominating all domestic comers to both reach the U20 World Team Trials final and then make the team itself.
He’d follow that up with a 3-0 performance at this summer’s U20 Pan-American Championships in Peru – besting a trio of foes by a combined 25-3 margin.
As the first Hawkeye competitor of the week (Monday/Tuesday) Black’s 25-man bracket at 63 kilograms (~139 pounds) has already been released.
His first opponent of the competition will be either Serbia’s Dejan Berkec or Croatia’s Matej Rebic in the Round of 16.
Naomi Simon (Women’s Freestyle – 76 kilograms) *competes September 4-5
The first of Iowa’s four women competing this week will be Decorah (IA) native Naomi Simon, who has been on an absolute tear for most of 2024.
After becoming the first-ever undefeated four-time state champion in Iowa girls high school wrestling history with a record of 150-0, Simon (the 13th-ranked pound-for-pound recruit in America) would roll right into the freestyle season and continue her dominance.
She just missed qualifying for the US Olympic Team Trials with a third-place finish against senior-level competition at the Last Chance Qualifier event held in Virginia back in April and would then immediately turn her attention toward U20 Trials the following week on the other side of the country in Spokane, Washington.
Simon proceeded to run roughshod over her competition on the West Coast – winning six-consecutive matches (including a sweep in the best-of-three final) by either tech. fall or pin to clinch her first-ever spot on a World team.
The barely 18-year-old (as of August 23) will be in a bracket at 76 kilograms (~167.6 pounds) with 10 other elite competitors from around the world, needing to win either three or four matches in-a-row (depending on the draw) to earn a gold medal.
Back in July, she got her first taste of international competition in a fifth-place finish at the Grand Prix of Spain – where she opened the event in (admirable) 8-4 defeat against six-time Kazakhstani Senior World team member and two-time Olympian (bronze in 2016) Elmira Syzdykova.
I can’t tell you much about the rest of the field at 76kg this week, particularly before the bracket is drawn, but I’d imagine that Simon will be capable of going with and/or beating most, if not all of the competition on hand as she returns to Spain for the second time this summer.
Brianna Gonzalez (WFS – 53 kilograms) *competes September 5-6
The first of the Hawkeyes with actual prior college experience to their name will be one of head women’s coach Clarissa Chun’s prized lightweight pupils.
Following a 34-2 inaugural collegiate season in which she finished as the national runner up at 116 pounds to Iowa teammate Felicity Taylor, Brianna Gonzalez makes her World Championship debut at the tail end of a busy summer of her own.
Much like the aforementioned Simon, Gonzalez (twin sister of Hawkeye 103-pound national champion Emilie) bounced back and forth from coast to coast this summer herself, though adding a third leg to the Virginia-Washington travel plan by qualifying for the US Olympic Trials at 53kg via a 1st-place finish at the Last Chance Qualifier event.
In fact, the California native either bonus’d or shutout every single opponent she faced between the Last Chance Qualifier and U20 Trials with the exception of a 6-7 defeat in the opening bout of her best-of-three final at U20’s.
(She’d go on to win matches two and three by 10-0 and 12-2 scores to earn the 53kg spot on Team USA.)
A 1-2 showing in State College, PA at the Olympic Trials was a tough, if somewhat reasonable pill to swallow, as was a humbling fifth-place finish at the Grand Prix of Spain in early July – where Gonzalez lost to both a 2024 Olympian from Nigeria and a 2023 Senior World bronze medalist from Canada.
Recent losses aside, I’ll be fascinated to see how the 19-year-old redshirt-sophomore-to-be fares against international competition her own age this week in Spain. Gonzalez wrestles with an uncommon pace and ferocity, and it’ll be up to the 20 other women in her bracket at 53 kilograms (~116.8 pounds) to find a way to overcome it.
Cadence Diduch (WFS – 62 kilograms) *competes September 5-6
Another incoming freshman who took on all comers this summer is Illinois native Cadence Diduch – ranked the #12 pound-for-pound recruit in America according to USA Wrestling (and others).
She too, was at the Last Chance Qualifier – going 2-2 as a 17-year-old amidst a field of collegiate and senior-level competitors.
Out at U20 Trials she’d reach the best-of-three finals at 62 kilograms (~136.7 pounds) thanks to a trio of dominant tech. falls and one last-second winner in the quarterfinals.
Diduch would rely on that clutch factor once again in the finals, responding from a resounding 10-0 loss in the opening bout to win consecutive tactical matches (6-0 and 2-1) that would put her on her first-ever World team.
Among the five-Hawkeye contingent who wrestled at the Grand Prix of Spain two months ago, Diduch earned bronze thanks to a 2-1 record against opponents from the likes of Venezuela and host Spain.
Five-consecutive wins will be the requisite tally for any of the 24 competitors to win a U20 World title at 62kg this week, and the Freeport High School graduate has seemingly done all that she can to be as prepared to do so as any of them.
Reese Larramendy (WFS – 65 kilograms) *competes September 5-6
One of only two Hawkeyes this week with previous experience on the World stage – and the only one amongst the Iowa women – Reese Larramendy enters the tournament (I think) as ready as anyone to become a first-time World champion.
A fifth-place finisher at the event back in 2022, Larramendy – a redshirt sophomore at Iowa – then surprisingly missed out on a return trip in 2023 after taking third at the U20 Trials.
Fast forward to this year, and the Reno (NV) native seems to be wrestling better than ever before.
Larramendy (37-3) closed her inaugural college season by beating a returning Senior World fifth-place finisher at NCWWC Regionals, then bonus’ing her way to a national title at 143 pounds.
A month-and-change later at U20 Trials the train hadn’t slowed down one bit as she rattled off a six pack of bonus point victories to claim the 65-kilogram (~143.3 pounds) spot for the Stars & Stripes.
Six days later, Larramendy was wrestling up a weight (68kg) at the Olympic Trials where she’d gamely take fourth place – going 2-2 despite giving up a notable amount of size to most of her opponents.
Another bronze medalist in July at the Grand Prix of Spain, including a last-second defeat to a senior athlete from France (5th at 72kg at 2023 Worlds), was the last competitive appearance for Larramendy prior to U20 Worlds – though she did serve as a personal training partner to recently minted Olympic silver medalist (and brand-new Hawkeye teammate) Kennedy Blades in the interim.
The road will by no means be an easy one, as an 18-woman bracket stands between Larramendy and the spot atop the podium that she’s put in so much work to attain.
That said, I like her odds as much as anyone else to come home with the gold.
Ben Kueter (Men’s Freestyle – 125 kilograms) *competes September 7-8
And last but not least, Iowa’s other entry this week with previous World Championship experience also happens to be its only previous World Champion headed to Spain.
Two years ago, a homegrown Iowa City kid stood atop the World at 97 kilograms entering his senior year of high school.
Now, Ben Kueter will look to climb the mountain once again, this time at 125 kilograms (~275.6 pounds) and with arguably the biggest obstacle faced by any athlete at these U20 Worlds standing in his way.
Having gone through the U20 Trials to win the spot fresh off the back of spring football practice, Kueter made the decision to go all-in on Iowa wrestling through next March’s NCAA Championships.
Three months later we’ll see just how much the decision has paid off on the mat, as the still-growing heavyweight joins a 19-man bracket headlined by skyscraping Iranian Amirreza Masoumi – a four-time age-level World champion.
Not only is Masoumi an absolute force against his age-level peers, but he’s currently the fourth-ranked heavyweight in the World according to FloWrestling.
Look, there’s a real chance Kueter has improved by leaps and bounds since committing himself full time to wrestling. And there’s a real chance that improvement manifests itself in a deep NCAA tournament run next spring.
But there’s also a very real chance that none of it may matter if the undersized American comes up against the imposing (not to mention extremely skilled) Iranian.
Of course, the catch is that if Kueter wants to take home his second World title in as many chances, Masoumi is overwhelmingly likely to be the opponent whom he must defeat to do so.
All I know is this, outcome be damned sign me the heck up to watch that matchup go down.
Short time
There you have it, folks.
I’ve set the stage as best as I can and now it’s up to the rest of you to tune in whenever/however you can and see how it all shakes out.
I want to stress again what a cool deal it is that the Hawkeyes will be represented by a half-dozen athletes across all three disciplines contested in Spain over the next week.
It truly is a testament to all that is ‘Iowa wrestling’ and an occurrence that one would only hope spurs on more and more representation on the World stage in the years to come.
Now, go ahead and copy that schedule, bookmark the necessary links, and if all else fails give me a follow on social media where I’ll be providing updates as often as I can throughout the next seven days of action.
These are the very best young wrestlers in the world, you guys – and six of them will be representing the Hawkeyes (and America) for Team USA.
Let’s do this.
