Maroulis back to World finals for sixth time, Kilty, Welker enter repechage

ZAGREB, Croatia – The marvelous Helen Maroulis is back where she belongs—the finals of the 2025 World Championships.

Maroulis completed a clean sweep of her opponents on Tuesday at Arena Zagreb. She went three-for-three on pins, including a feet-to-back counter to pin Olga Khoroshavtseva of UWW 11 seconds into the second period of the 57 kg semifinals. Khoroshavtseva is the reigning European champion, plus a 2020 Olympian and 2019 World bronze medalist.

The Olympic champion and three-time Olympic medalist Maroulis earned first-period falls on 2021 U20 World bronze medalist Emine Cakmak of Turkey and two-time U23 World medalist Himeka Tokuhara of Japan in the morning session. She has not surrendered a match point yet in Croatia.

In advancing to her sixth World final, Maroulis is guaranteed to add a remarkable eighth World medal to her collection. A win against Asian silver medal Il Sim Son of North Korea tomorrow night would give Maroulis her fourth World Championships crown. Her previous World titles came in 2015, 2017 and 2021.

The U.S. women received more good news when Macey Kilty and Kylie Welker were both pulled into the repechage and live to fight for a bronze medal. Kilty will face Olympic bronze medalist Grace Bullen of Norway at 65 kg, and Welker is up against two-time age-group World medalist Elmira Yasin of Turkey at 76 kg, tomorrow morning—winners to the bronze medal round.

For a complete match-by-match breakdown of the evening session for Team USA in Zagreb, browse our day four match notes.

The tournament resumes at 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday with the men’s freestyle group three (65-97 kg) and women’s freestyle group one (55-59 kg) medal matches. Zagreb, Croatia, is in the GMT +2 time zone, which is six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.

The Senior World Championships are streaming live on FloWrestling.com to the U.S. market. Brackets and updated results are available on UWW Arena.

USA Wrestling will provide regular updates on TheMat.com and its social media platforms throughout the event.