Bydgoszcz, Poland – Allyssa Cleaves of St. Stephen, N.B., made it to the repechage match at the U23 World Championships before being defeated by Mongolia’s Otgonjargal Ganbaatar.

Cleaves defeated Kazakhstan’s Madina Nadirova with a pin in her first match. The 23-year-old then fell to China’s Qi Zhang 6-5 in the quarterfinal. Overall, Cleaves finished 7th out of 17 in the 53 kg weight class.

“Overall, I was pleased with how I wrestled,” said Cleaves. “The close losses are always hard to deal with but the way I felt on the mat was a positive experience.”

“I had success with certain things that we’ve been working on and I’m trying to focus more on that than the outcome of the tournament.”

Cleaves, who studies at the University of New Brunswick, won gold for Canada at the 2016 FISU World University Wrestling Championships in Corum, Turkey.

“Allyssa demonstrated great effort and competitiveness every match,” said Tonya Verbeek, Wrestling Canada Lutte’s International Coach. “Her desire to learn and improve her wrestling will pay off.”

The U23 World Championships is a first for United World Wrestling. The federation is debuting the competition for 18 to 23-year-old athletes in the three Olympic disciplines.

There are two days of competition left at the U23 World Championships. Darthe Capellan gets things started for the men on Saturday, before Dillon Williams, Caleb Rutner, Jevon Balfour and Nishan Randhawa compete on Sunday.

Live streaming and results are available on United World Wrestling’s website: https://unitedworldwrestling.org/event/senior-u23-world-championships

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Chris Reith

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