When time expired on Kylie Welker’s 2024 Olympic dream, she slumped on one knee and dropped her chin as she stared at the mat inside the Bryce Jordan Center. 

This wasn’t the ending Welker envisioned. Not in April. Not at the Olympic Trials. And certainly not in the Challenge Tournament semifinals against longtime rival Yelena Makoyed. 

They had battled roughly a dozen times and Welker had won all but two of them. Her commanding lead in the series included a pair of high-stakes bouts weeks before with college national team titles at stake — and Welker won those two matches by a combined 22-3 count. 

But at the Trials, Makoyed raced out to an early six-point lead and held on for a 6-4 victory that left Welker in stunned disbelief.  

She dashed off the mat through the bowels of the Bryce Jordan Center into the chilly Pennsylvania spring air. She crumpled over, dry heaving as fans milled past, most of whom were unaware a goal that was eight years in the making had unraveled on Welker in a span of six minutes. 

Curled on the ground, Welker spotted some of her Hawkeye Wrestling Club teammates while Iowa assistant coach Tonya Verbeek consoled her. 

“I don’t know what happened. It didn’t even feel like me out there,” Welker told Verbeek. “Sitting outside after the match, it was probably the lowest I had ever felt in my wrestling career.”

It’s been an interesting nine-month journey for Welker since the Olympic Trials. Her 2025 calendar season kicks off Friday when Iowa wrestles at the NWCA National Duals — an event she helped the Hawkeyes win last year when she defeated Makoyed in the final bout of a captivating battle between Iowa and North Central College. 

Welker is coming off a dominant showing at the Soldier Salute, where she captured the 180-pound title by registering an 87-second pin and outscoring her other five opponents by a combined 50-0 count. It was a bookend performance to a 2024 calendar season that included several mountaintop moments with one difficult-to-digest valley in between. 

“I think she would not summarize the entire season as exactly what she was hoping for because of the Olympic Trials,” Verbeek said. “It was definitely an amazing experience with the team in winning a national title and how we did that, so there were a lot of highs there. But looking at the Olympic Trials, that was probably the lowest of the lows for her. Seeing her be able to fight back and respond to that and look for the next-best thing and go after World titles, she did that.

“With her success as a young athlete prior to coming to Iowa, she has a lot of expectations on herself and so do others, and trying to manage that with where she’s at now and what’s in front of her, right now in her career with who she is and who she’s becoming, it’s been really awesome. That year, I think it was meant to happen in the way it did for her long-term growth.” 

In the weeks following the Olympic Trials, Welker said she felt “lost.” 

“You have this big, lifelong dream in front of you, and then after one mistake it’s just gone,” she said. “I didn’t want to be in the practice room. I didn't want to get on the mat. I just wanted to disappear.”

She’d been laser-focused on the 2024 Games since 2016 when — sitting in the stands alongside friend Ashton Cadman at the Women’s Nationals — she spotted a flyer for the Olympic Trials in Iowa City. That sheet of paper ignited a fire inside Welker. 

“Before my first Folkstyle Nationals, I didn’t even know women’s wrestling was in the Olympics,” she said. “Once I saw that flyer, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I told my friend, Ashton, that I wanted to go to the Olympics someday.” 

For the past eight years, Welker has been building a world-class resume. She collected four age-group World medals, including a pair of golds. At 17, she upended the 76-kilogram field at the 2021 Olympic Trials Challenge Tournament, earning wins over formidable opponents such as Makoyed, Dymond Guliford, and Victoria Francis. Her performance in Fort Worth set the high school junior up for a best-of-three finals series with reigning World champion Adeline Gray, the most decorated athlete in American women’s wrestling history. 

Gray swept that series to secure her second Olympic berth, while Welker turned her attention ahead to the next quad. She set “2024” as the passcode on her phone. 

The pieces were lining up in the first few months of 2024. Her 11-3 win against Makoyed in January locked up the National Duals title for the Hawkeyes. Two months later, she clinched another championship for Iowa when she beat Makoyed 11-0 in the national title bout. 

“I’ve wrestled Yelena something like 12 or 13 times,” Welker said. “Since I had only ever lost to Yelena twice before, in my head I was already kind of looking past her at Trials. I was too focused on game planning for Kennedy (Blades in the Challenge Tournament finals).” 

Another Goal To Chase

The Trials loss left Welker without a next big thing on the calendar.

After finishing behind Blades and Makoyed at the Trials — both of whom were also U23 eligible — Welker thought her international season had abruptly ended in April. 

Shortly thereafter, though, she received a call from USA Wrestling developmental coach Jessica Medina that changed the course of Welker's year. Medina explained that because Welker had made the Senior National Team at 76 kilograms, she was eligible to wrestle off for the U23 World Team spot at 72 kg. 

Welker gradually began ramping up her training again. Having another international goal to chase provided her with a renewed sense of purpose.

According to Verbeek, Welker committed “to making some changes in her wrestling.” 

“She’s a super-great athlete,” Verbeek said. “She knows she has to solidify her takedowns and stay in good position — the fundamentals, really, is what it comes down to. When that’s mixed with her athleticism, she can be unstoppable.” 

Welker attended USA Wrestling National Team camps where she served as a training partner for the Paris-bound Olympians and she returned to competition in June feeling more like her old self. More importantly, she felt ready. She seized a spot on the U23 Team with a pair of dominant 10-0 technical superiority wins against Aspen Barber.

Around that time, Welker also learned she might get a chance at a second World Championship event in 2024. United World Wrestling announced it was staging its Senior World Championships in Albania on the heels of its U23 World Championships. Welker was captivated by the idea of competing in back-to-back World Championship events.

She handled Skylar Grote 12-1 in her first match at the Senior World Team Trials in Omaha, setting up a best-of-three against Makoyed. Welker left no doubt this time around, scoring a fall in the first match and clinching the series with a 5-2 victory in the second bout. 

For Welker, flipping the script on Makoyed ran deeper than just making a World Team. 

“At Olympic Trials, I felt like I had kind of beat myself,” she said. “I started looking too far into the bracket, and I just wasn’t as focused as I needed to be against Yelena. This time, I wanted to get that match back. But more than that, I wanted to show what kind of wrestler I am.”

Welker dealt with some challenges in the weeks prior to the U23 World Championships. A back injury kept her off the mat in the days leading up to the tournament. Nonetheless, she got out of the gates quickly in Albania, scoring a pair of technical superiority wins to reach the semifinals. 

She trailed early against 2021 U23 World champ Anastasiya Alpyeyeva of Ukraine. But Welker rallied back with a last-minute takedown to win. 

In the finals, she racked up seven points before pinning Canada’s Vianne Rouleau to win her second World title. 

“After I won, I was really happy. I hadn’t been on the World Team since 2021, and I hadn’t won a title in three years,” Welker said. “It felt good to get the monkey off my back.” 

She celebrated that night with pizza and then it was back to work for final preparations for the Senior World Championships. 

Welker posted a pair of shutout victories to open the Senior World Championships before pinning China’s Qian Jiang to set up a semifinal showdown with Japan’s Ami Ishii. 

Ishii started her offense early, securing several low singles and a series of laces to win the match 12-1, ending Welker’s quest for a double gold. 

After her tough loss to Ishii, Welker found motivation in the past. She recalled her first trip to the Senior World Championships in 2021 when she lost in the opening round of the tournament, but gained valuable perspective watching teammate and Olympic champion Tamyra Mensah Stock battle back for bronze. 

“I remember Tamyra getting upset in the semifinals,” Welker said. ”She had just come off of winning the Olympics, so obviously she was crushed when she took bronze. But I remember thinking at the time that I would kill to be walking away from worlds with a medal. I felt like I owed it to that 17-year-old me to come back and win.”

In her bronze medal match, Welker controlled the tempo with a 5-2 victory over 2022 World bronze medalist Alexandra Anghel of Romania. 

In a span of six months, Welker had gone from the lowest point of her wrestling career to her top achievement on the international stage. She’d gone from believing her international season had ended in April to coming home with a pair of World medals. 

“After winning the bronze, I was just so happy,” Welker said. “Obviously, I'll be coming back for the World title, but a World medal is a big first step.”