Jordan Burroughs battled back to capture a bronze medal despite being injured in his first match. Larry Slater photo. Continued from page 6
medals at the World Championships. She joins Kristie Marano, Trish Saunders and Shannon Williams in that exclusive group. Marano won nine World medals while Saunders and Williams won four each.
Gray joins Saunders and Marano as the only Americans to win two World titles in women’s freestyle. Saunders won four World titles and Marano two.
Pirozhkova turned in a strong performance before dropping a 4-2 decision to Ukraine’s Yulia Tkach in the gold-medal match at 63 kg/138.75 lbs.
Pirozhkova trailed 2-0 at the break after Tkach scored a first- period takedown on a leg attack. Tkach took a 4-0 lead midway through the second period before Pirozhkova struck back with an inside trip to close the gap to 4-2, nearly exposing Tkach’s back to the mat.
Pirozhkova tried valiantly to score in the final 20 seconds, but to no avail. Pirozhkova beat Tkach 8-2 in July’s Golden Grand Prix in Azerbaijan.
“I gave it all I had in this tournament,” Pirozhkova said. “A lot of what we’ve been working on in practice is working for me. There were some positives that came out of this – I just didn’t come out with the final result I wanted in the finals.” Helen Maroulis shook off a tough semifinal setback and came back to capture a bronze medal at 55 kg/121 lbs. Maroulis charged out aggressively in rolling to a 10-0 technical fall over Poland’s Katarzyna Krawczyk in the bronze-medal match. “I’ve been working on my mental game,” Maroulis said. “I was really disappointed I lost in the semifinals, but I tried to come back strong in the bronze-medal match. It was important to win that medal and I went after it.” Maroulis won her second career World medal. She captured a World silver medal in 2012.
“Helen was in complete control in that last match,” Steiner said. “That’s a big step for her to win another World medal and we think there are bigger things to come for Helen.” The U.S. women finished in third place in the team race with
Continued on page 8 USA Wrestler 7
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