Makoyed, Jones and Mortimer advance to women’s freestyle semifinals at U23 World Championships

TIRANA, Albania – A trio of U.S. women—Sage Mortimer, Amani Jones and Yelena Makoyed—advanced to the semifinals at the U23 World Championships with powerful efforts on Wednesday morning at Tirana’s Feti Borova Sports Hall.

The three American semifinalists combined to win seven matches, six of which were decided by either fall or technical fall.

Makoyed got the U.S. off to a hot start with an 11-0 technical fall against 2022 U20 World bronze medalist Alina Yertostik of Kazakhstan right out of the gate. She was the first to clinch a semifinal berth, doing so with a pin in 1:59 on Mariia Orlevych of Ukraine. It was an arm bar finish that sealed the win for Makoyed.

It will be Nodoka Yamamoto of Japan in the 76 kg semifinals for Makoyed. Yamamoto is less credentialled than her Japanese teammates in terms of medals, but does have solid international experience with a fifth-place finish from this event last year and an appearance at the Asian Games under her belt. A win in the semifinals would guarantee Makoyed her first World medal and keep her international medal streak that goes back to 2021 alive.

Mortimer put up a combined 25 points in her two matches at 55 kg. She was dynamic in technical fall wins over Khrystyna Basych of Slovakia and Laura Ganikyzy of Kazakhstan.

Like Makoyed, Mortimer faces an opponent from Japan as she looks to clinch her first World medal. Her path to the finals goes through defending 50 kg champion Umi Ito, who has won age-group World titles at the U17, U20 and U23 levels.

Jones looked every bit the part of a gold medal contender through one session. She picked up second period pins against Antonia Valdes Arriagada of Chile and Ying Lu of China to open the day. In her quarterfinal, Jones built a 7-0 first period lead on 2022 U20 World bronze medalist Roza Szenttamasi of Hungary before cruising to a 9-3 victory.

Pan American rival Zeltzin Hernandez Guerra of Mexico is all that stands in the way of Jones securing a place in the 55 kg finals and guaranteeing her an age-group World medal in back-to-back years.

At 68 kg, Brooklyn Hays wrestled to a 2-1 record during the morning session and remains in the hunt for a repechage match. She made it to the quarterfinals before dropping a tough 10-4 decision to 2024 Olympian and two-time defending U23 World champion Nesrin Bas of Turkey. Hays needs Bas to return to the final in order to get pulled back into the tournament.

Luck was against Skye Realin at 59 kg as she dropped her opener to Individual Neutral Athlete Alesia Hetmanava, 10-0. Hetmanava, a three-time age-group World medalist and reigning U23 European champion, went on to drop her next match, eliminating Realin from medal contention.

The U23 World Championships continue at 4:45 p.m. local time with the women’s freestyle group one (50-55-59-68-76 kg) semifinals, followed by the Greco-Roman group two (55-63-77-87-130 kg) medal matches at 6 p.m. For those following along live, Tirana, Albania, is located six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.

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.

Revisit the details of each match from today in our day three match notes article.