Milford’s Kayla Batres, shown last fall, is will be wrestling at the U20 world championships this week for Guatemala. (Photo courtesy Sam Janicki)
Milford’s Kayla Batres will be representing Guatemala this week at the U20 world championships in Slovakia. The Greens Farms Academy student will be competing at 50 kilograms in women’s freestyle (110 pounds) beginning on Tuesday.
Batres, who will be a senior at GFA this fall, is one of two Guatemala wrestlers in the tournament. She earned her first berth to a world championship tournament by winning the Pat Shaw Memorial tournament in June.
Qualification matches begin at 10 a.m. with the semifinals at 4:45 p.m. Repechage matches will be Wednesday at 10 a.m. with the medal round matches on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Jack Conroy, the head coach at GFA and South Side Wrestling Club in Bridgeport, and Arelys Valles, a coach at South Side and an assistant coach at Grand View University in Iowa, will be in Batres’ corner during the tournament.
The American wrestler in the tournament at 50 kg is Morgan Turner of Chicago, who finished sixth at the Senior national championships and won the U23 world team and U20 world team trials.
The tournament began on Sunday with Greco-Roman competition. Women’s freestyle begins on Tuesday with men’s freestyle beginning on Friday.
It’s been an eventful season for Batres. She won her first Prep School national championship for GFA in March at 114 pounds – her third straight All-American performance. She was named to the FloWrestling All-American first team at 110 pounds. Turner was the All-American selection at 115 pounds.
Batres earned a spot on the Guatemala national team for the U20 world championships by winning the Pat Shaw Memorial tournament in June. At the U20 Pan American championships in Brazil, Batres won a silver medal for Guatemala, finishing second behind an American wrestler.
The most recent wrestler from Connecticut to compete in a world championship event was Southbury’s William Henckel, who finished second at 79 kg for Team USA in the 2025 U20 world championships in Bulgaria.
FloWrestling is the host broadcast partner of United World Wrestling in the U.S. market. Fans unable to attend in person can watch the U20 World Championships live or on-demand at FloWrestling.org.
Brackets and live results for the U20 world championships will be available through UWW Arena.
U20 World Championships
At Bratislava, Slovakia, August 16-23
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