91°µÍø

BAKU, Azerbaijan – The opening day of men’s freestyle competition saw Chase Karenbauer advance to the semifinals after posting a 3-0 mark during the morning session of the 2026 U17 World Championships at the National Gymnastics Arena.

At 55 kg, Karenbauer came out firing to start the day with a 48-second, 10-0 technical fall against Valentin Deleanu of Moldova. Facing Kyosuke Ikeda of Japan, Karenbauer won a hard-fought 6-4 battle.

Looking to advance to the evening session, Karenbauer collected a controlled 11-4 decision over Mukhammadiasin Izzatillaev of Kyrgyzstan.

Karenbauer’s semifinal match comes against two-time age-group Pan American medalist and 2025 U17 World Team member Jovanni Tovar of Colombia.

Kooper Deputy and Arseni Kikiniou both collected victories for Team USA on Friday morning but dropped their second bouts. Kikiniou got the men’s freestyle squad started with a 7-0 decision versus Bidzina Jintcharadze of Georgia. In the round of 16 at 65 kg, Kikiniou suffered a 6-1 setback to two-time age-group Pan American champion Jovani Solis of Puerto Rico. Deputy dominated Bogdan Sapojnic of Germany in his first match at 48 kg; however, Deputy saw time expire on his attempt to pin 2025 U15 Asian champion Aaryan of India and lost 10-7 in the quarterfinals.

With Solis and Aaryan both competing in the semifinals tonight, Deputy and Kikiniou still have hopes to make it into tomorrow’s repechage.

Peter Mocco is also still alive for the repechage after he suffered a 3-0 defeat to 2025 U17 World Team member Murtaz Bagdavadze of Georgia, who is in the semifinals.

Jayden O’Farrill capped off the U.S. men’s freestyle lineup on Friday, falling to 2025 U17 World bronze medalist Ayubjon Bozorzoda of Tajikistan in an 8-6 battle. With Bozorzoda dropping his quarterfinal bout, O’Farrill has been eliminated from the championships.

For a complete match-by-match breakdown from the morning session for Team USA, visit our day five match notes.

Semifinal pairings for men’s freestyle group one (48-55-65-80-110 kg) and complete U.S. results are available below.

Men’s freestyle group one returns to the mat tonight for the semifinal round starting at 5 p.m. local time/9 a.m. ET.

Live streams and archived matches are available on in the U.S. market. Brackets and results are hosted on .

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