Helen Maroulis tied the U.S. wrestling record by winning a ninth senior World Championships medal, bronze in the 57kg division on Wednesday in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Maroulis, 35, earned a 5-2 decision over Nilufar Raimova of Kazakhstan.
She became the fifth American to win a ninth world medal after Bruce Baumgartner, Kristie Davis, Jordan Burroughs and Adeline Gray. Kyle Snyder can join that group later this week in Astana.
Maroulis competed at her 13th career senior worlds, in addition to her three Olympic appearances. In 2016, she became the first U.S. woman to win Olympic wrestling gold, then added bronze in Tokyo and in Paris. Her 12 combined Olympic and world medals are one behind Baumgartner’s American record.
“It’s always good to get a medal,” she said. “Nothing’s guaranteed. Not even your health.”
Maroulis said before the tournament that she feels better than ever and has said she plans to wrestle through 2028. But she also dealt with vertigo for two months and barely wrestled in July and August.
Some days, she couldn’t get out of bed or even reach for her phone to call for help.
“I just would open my eyes, and then everything would spin,” she told Flowrestling. “I’d either roll over and throw up, or I would just pass out. After a few hours it would kind of subside throughout the day.”
Maroulis, the 2025 World champion, was taken out of the running of a repeat title on Tuesday in a 4-2 quarterfinal defeat to Sena Nagamoto of Japan, who went on to take silver to Hong Kexin of China.
“I didn’t feel like myself yesterday or today,” Maroulis said. “I know that there’s a better version of Helen, too, so I would love to showcase that. I don’t think I wrestled good (in) any of the matches to be quite honest with you.”
Also Wednesday, American Dymond Guilford won her first senior world medal, also bronze, in the 76kg division.
Guilford, a 26-year-old who was fourth at the 2024 Olympic Trials, beat Kadriye Kocak Aksoy of Turkiye 7-2.
“I had a dream about three or two months ago where I was, like, ascending on the world stage and everything,” she said. “I was like, OK, I think God’s speaking to me. Let me just walk in this, even though I’ve had years of failures and such. I said, ‘You know what, I think that God told me I’m going to be doing something real great.’ Then I won Final X (to make the world team), and then I came here, and I started winning matches.”
Earlier, American Adaugo Nwachukwu clinched her first senior world medal by reaching the 62kg final. She wrestles Thursday against Olympic bronze medalist Nonoka Ozaki of Japan.
Nwachukwu, a 23-year-old specialist in the U.S. Army, was born in Nigeria and moved to the U.S. with her dad at age 14. She was third in the 2024 Olympic Trials, then seventh in her World Championships debut in 2025.
She can become the first American woman to win a world title in the middleweight class since Elena Pirozhkova in 2012.
