Lilledahl, Ryder to wrestle for men’s freestyle gold, Bassett, Duke, Rademacher for bronze at U20 World Championships

PONTEVEDRA, Spain – The U.S. earned a pair of men’s freestyle finalists—Luke Lilledahl at 57 kg and Zack Ryder at 79 kg—and placed three others into a bronze medal match as day five of the 2024 U20 World Championships concluded on Friday evening at Pontevedra Municipal Sports Hall.

Lilledahl advanced to his fourth-straight age-group World final with a crafty 4-1 win over U20 European bronze medalist Hayko Gasparyan of Armenia. After taking a 1-0 lead to the break, Lilledahl converted a timely single leg in the early stages of the second period to avoid going on the shot clock, which ultimately pushed him over the top for the win.

It’ll be the second-straight appearance in the U20 World finals for Lilledahl, who earned a silver medal at 57 kg in Amman, Jordan, one year ago. His finals opponent is U20 European champion Lev Pavlov, an individual neutral athlete. The two wrestled in the opening round at last year’s event with Lilledahl taking the match decisively, 9-2.

After notching back-to-back bronze medals at the U17 Worlds in recent years, Ryder jumped up to the U20 level and immediately upgraded his medal color.

Ryder fought to a gritty, 6-3, decision over individual neutral athlete Said Saidulov in the semifinals. He took a 2-0 lead to the break thanks to shot clock and step out points. Saidulov came out strong in the second frame, overtaking Ryder 3-2 with a takedown and shot clock point of his own. From there out, it was all Ryder, who notched a pair of takedowns in the home stretch to advance.

Up next for Ryder is U23 Asian bronze medalist Alp Begenjov of Turkmenistan, who emphatically pinned India’s Amit Amit in the opposite semifinal. Begenjov earned fifth place at last year’s U17 World Championships at 71 kg, a bracket won by American Ladarion Lockett, who is this year’s 74 kg U.S. representative in Spain.

The U.S. sent all five of its men’s freestyle athletes to the semifinal round during a pristine, 14-0, morning session. The undefeated trend came to an end for three members of the team, who will all enter a bronze medal match tomorrow.

At 70 kg, New York native PJ Duke nearly pulled off a resilient comeback win against individual neutral athlete Magomed Baitukaev, but ended up falling on criteria, 5-5. 2021 U17 World champion Bo Bassett was unable to get going in his 65 kg semifinal, dropping a 10-0 technical fall to Japan’s Makoto Hosokawa. Oregon product Justin Rademacher battled hard against Kazakhstan’s Rizabek Aitmukhan but couldn’t find his offense in a 9-1 decision loss at 97 kg.

Duke, Bassett and Rademacher all await repechage results to find out their opponents in the bronze medal round.

The U20 World Championships continue tomorrow at 10 a.m. local time with the men’s freestyle group one (57-65-70-79-97 kg) repechage and the qualification rounds for men’s freestyle group two (61-74-86-92-125 kg). Pontevedra, Spain, is located six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.

A full set of brackets and match-by-match results is 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 U20 World Championships.