ASTANA, Kazakhstan – Penn State wrestling, the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club and Penn State Regional Training Center prepare to kick off competition at the 2026 United World Wrestling Senior World Championships this Thursday through Sunday, October 29 through November 1, from Barys Arena in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The Nittany Lions will send one current student-athlete, three alumni and a pair of affiliated RTC athletes to compete in Astana, with current sophomore 61kg standout Marcus Blaze highlighting the group. Recent Penn State graduate Levi Haines will compete at 79kg, Zain Retherford will represent the United States at 70kg, NLWC athletes Kyle Dake and Kyle Snyder will compete for Team USA at 86 and 97kg, respectively, and Penn State alum Roman Bravo-Young will wrestle for Mexico at 57kg.
Snyder begins competition at approximately 1:30 a.m. (ET) on Thursday, with Blaze, Retherford and Dake set to begin on Friday in the same 1:30 a.m. (ET) start window. Bravo-Young and Haines prepare to start things off at their respective weights on Saturday at 1:30 a.m. (ET). Qualification rounds for all six wrestlers are followed by semifinals at approximately 7:30 a.m. (ET) on the same day as each wrestler’s initial start. Repechage action falls next-day, followed by medal matches and award ceremonies after repechages at approximately 9 a.m. (ET) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. All Penn State-affiliated bouts, as well as the remainder of the Senior World Championships, will stream live in the United States via FloWrestling and the FloSports app for subscribers on connected devices.
Hailing from Perrysburg, Ohio, Blaze stands as the only current Penn State student-athlete competing at the Senior World Championships this year. The second-year Nittany Lion opens action at 61kg in the qualifying rounds on Friday against Türkiye’s Emrah Ormanoglu. As a freestyle competitor, Blaze is a two-time age-group World Champion in addition to being a three-time age-group world medalist. The Penn State sophomore is in the midst of one of his most impressive freestyle seasons in 2026, having already secured a gold medal at the Poland Open in addition to individual victories at both the U.S. Open and Final X to secure his place on the U.S. Senior World Team. On the collegiate scene, Blaze is fresh off an All-America performance at the 2026 NCAA Championships in Cleveland, finishing fourth while closing the book on a 25-3 campaign that included a 71.4 percent bonus rate.
A native of Benton, Pennsylvania, Nittany Lion alum Zain Retherford gets set for his fifth Senior World Championship appearance in his career in addition to his third showing in the last five events. He is slated to open his run at the World Championships in the qualifying round against Muhammad Abdurachmanov of Belgium, with the winner of that bout set to face Iszmail Muszukajev of Hungary. Retherford is a two-time senior-level world medalist at 70kg, highlighted by a World Championship in 2023 and a silver-medal result in 2022. Retherford was also a representative of Team USA at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. As a collegian, Retherford was a two-time Dan Hodge Trophy winner at PSU in addition to being a four-time All-American, three-time NCAA Champion and three-time Big Ten Conference Champion at 149 pounds.
Haines, the reigning world silver medalist at 79kg and recent Penn State alumnus, is set to begin action on Saturday as the No. 3 seed in this year’s World Championship field. The Arendtsville, Pennsylvania, native opens competition in the qualifying rounds against Mohammed Bouazouni of Morocco. Haines gears up for his second all-time appearance at the Senior World Championships and second consecutive after representing Team USA last year in Zagreb, Croatia. Haines is a Senior World silver medalist, Senior Pan American Champion in addition to being a World and Pan American Champion at the U23 level. In folkstyle, Haines picked up a pair of NCAA Championships, earned four All-America honors and four Big Ten Conference Championships during his time with the Nittany Lions.
Hailing from Ithaca, New York, Dake returns to the Senior World Championships for the sixth time in his illustrious career and prepares for his first appearance at the event since 2023. He opens his run at Worlds in the 86kg qualifying rounds against Mongolia’s Batbilguun Naadambat. Dake is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist for the United States, adding four Senior World Championship titles to his resume as well as a Senior World silver medal in 2023. Dake is also a five-time champion of Final X, cementing his place as one of the strongest American freestyle competitors. As a collegiate competitor at Cornell, Dake went four-for-four in the NCAA Championships from 2010 to 2013 and remains the only man in the sport’s history to win four championships at four different weight classes having never taken a redshirt.
A native of Silver Spring, Maryland, Snyder returns to the mat at the Senior World Championships for the ninth time in his career, second consecutive and fourth time in the last five events. The decorated world-level wrestler will kick off his defense of the 2025 World Championship at 97kg with a bye into the round of 16 as the No. 1 seed at the weight class. Snyder will face off against the winner of Türkiye’s Alperen Tokgoz and Mongolia’s Demchigdorj Tumurbaatar. Snyder is a three-time Olympian, a 2016 Olympic Champion in Rio de Janeiro, a four-time world champion and eight-time world medalist. He has set the standard at 97kg for American wrestlers, adding seven Pan American Championship titles and a trio of gold medals at the Pan American Games to his already-illustrious world-level career. At the collegiate level, Snyder competed at Ohio State and won three NCAA Championships at heavyweight from 2016 to 2018 in addition to a runner-up result at 197 pounds in 2015.
Bravo-Young, a native of Tucson, Arizona, prepares to represent Mexico at the 2026 Senior World Championships in the 57kg weight class. His opening bout on Saturday comes against Kazakhstan’s Meirambek Kartbay in the qualifying round. The 2023 Penn State graduate boasts a wide array of international-level success for Team Mexico, most recently publishing a gold-medal result at the 2026 Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He went a perfect 5-0 in Santo Domingo, winning all five bouts en route to the gold medal by way of technical superiority, outscoring opponents 52-1 in the process. Bravo-Young also owns a 2025 gold medal from the Pan American Championships in Monterrey, Mexico, toppling a trio of competitors highlighted by two wins by technical superiority. As a folkstyle wrestler in Happy Valley, Bravo-Young came away with a pair of national championships at 133 pounds in 2021 and 2022 in addition to picking up four All-America honors.
Penn State and the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club/Penn State RTC are fresh off a productive showing at the 2025 Senior World Championships a year ago in Zagreb, Croatia. Then-Nittany Lion Levi Haines came away with an impressive silver-medal finish at 79kg, falling to Georgios Kougioumtsidis of Greece in the gold medal match. Penn State RTC wrestler Kyle Snyder was a force for Team USA at last year’s event, bringing home the gold medal at 97kg to join two additional American competitors at the top of the podium in their respective weight classes. In the 2026 freestyle circuit, Penn State and the NLWC have registered a pair of silver medal finishes at age-group world championships in addition to picking up four gold medal results at the Poland Open in the organization’s final senior-level action ahead of this week’s World Championships.
ABOUT PENN STATE WRESTLING
The Nittany Lion wrestling program, under the direction of 18-year head coach Cael Sanderson, is fresh off a record-setting 2025-26 season in which the Blue & White took home their fifth consecutive national championship and 13th NCAA team title in the last 15 events. Penn State reset the NCAA Championship team scoring record for the third consecutive season, registering 181.5 points in Cleveland during the 2026 event, passing the program’s and NCAA’s previous record of 177.0 set the year before in Philadelphia. PSU saw a quartet of student-athletes book undefeated national championship seasons in 2026, with 125-pounder Luke Lilledahl, 174-pounder Levi Haines, 197-pounder Josh Barr and 165-pound Dan Hodge Trophy winner Mitchell Mesenbrink hauling in those honors. The 2026-27 season gets underway for Penn State on Thursday, November 12, when the Nittany Lions play host to the Bloomsburg Huskies in a 7 p.m. (ET) start from Rec Hall.
FOLLOW THE NITTANY LIONS
Visit GoPSUsports.com for more information on Penn State wrestling. Fans can keep up to date with the Nittany Lion wrestling team on X and Instagram @PennStateWREST, in addition to the team’s Facebook page at /PennStateWrestling.
The 2026-27 Penn State Wrestling season is presented by The Family Clothesline.