U.S. receives women’s freestyle draw at 2025 U17 World Championships

ATHENS, Greece – The women’s freestyle brackets have been released for the 2025 U17 World Championships being held at Ano Liossia Olympic Sports Hall, with an experienced team of 10 U.S. athletes taking the mats.

Two U17 World champions lead the way for Team USA—Taina Fernandez at 61 kg and Morgan Turner at 49 kg. Fernandez won the gold medal at last year’s event. Turner has collected back-to-back U17 Worlds medals, gold in 2023 and bronze in 2024.

Fernandez is slotted in the round-of-16 in her bracket and awaits the winner of a preliminary bout between Zichen Dong of China and Oleksandra Malkova of Ukraine. Dong hasn’t logged a notable international result, while Malkova was fifth place at the 2025 U17 European Championships.

Also in the round-of-16 is Turner, who will face a stiff test in her opener from two-time U17 Asian medalist Saniya Soltangali of Kazakhstan.

A third U17 World medalist is in the lineup for the U.S. women—2023 bronze medal winner Jaclyn Bouzakis at 46 kg. She begins her run in Athens against Yuting Yuan of China, who is an unknown commodity at this point of her career.

Fernandez and Bouzakis were one-of-four Team USA women’s freestyle athletes to secure U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals titles in Fargo, N.D., in mid-July. 57 kg representative Emma Bacon and 65 kg representative Violette Lasure, both of Pennsylvania, also hit the mark in Fargo. Bacon awaits the winner between Albina Salymbekova of Kyrgyzstan and Sayuki Tanada of Japan. Lasure opens with Vasiliki Karavanou of Greece.

Eight-of-10 U.S. women come into the U17 Worlds as current U17 Pan American champions. Fernandez, Turner, Bouzakis, Bacon and Lasure are included in that bunch, as are Maisie Elliott at 40 kg, Cassandra Gonzales at 69 kg and Ella Poalillo at 73 kg. Poalillo has drawn a notable first-round foe in 2024 U17 Asian silver medalist Uranzaya Tserennyam of Mongolia.

Additional Team USA athletes in the mix are Madison Healey at 43 kg and Epenesa Elison at 53 kg. First round matchups for each American can be found below.

The women’s freestyle tournament will be held July 30 through August 1, with the action starting at 10:30 a.m. local time each day. For those following along live, Athens, Greece, is located seven hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.

The U.S. will compete in two groups over the course of the women’s freestyle event. Group one, which starts on Wednesday, is comprised of Healey, Turner, Bacon, Lasure and Poalillo. Group two starts a day later, featuring Elliott, Bouzakis, Elison, Fernandez and Gonzales.

Updated brackets and match-by-match results are available on UWW Arena. A live broadcast of the event is available for the U.S. market at FloWrestling.com.

Stay tuned to TheMat.com and USA Wrestling’s social media platforms for complete coverage of the U17 World Championships.