Four wrestlers from South Side Wrestling Club in Bridgeport will be competing at the U23 world championships in Las Vegas this week. From left, Kayla Batres, Stephen Burrell, Mikey Altomer and Donell Young. (Image courtesy South Side WC)
Five wrestlers with ties to Connecticut will be competing this week at the U23 world championships in Las Vegas for five different nations.
Milford’s Kayla Batres, a senior at Greens Farms Academy in Westport, will be competing for Guatemala in women’s freestyle at 50 kilograms (110 pounds) while Danbury’s Matty Lopes, a junior at Lehigh University, will be competing for Brazil in men’s freestyle at 61 kg (134.4 pounds).
Stephen Burrell, Jr., who wrestled at GFA in high school, will be competing for Jamaica at 92 kg (208.8 pounds) in men’s freestyle.
Mikey Altomer, who trains at South Side Wrestling Club in Bridgeport, is on the American Greco Roman team at 87 kg (191.8) and will begin action on Monday.
Donell Young, who wrestled at Fairfield Ludlowe in high school, will be competing in Greco Roman at 77 kg (169.7) and in men’s freestyle at 79 kg (174.1 pounds).
Batres, who also trains at South Side, represented Guatemala at the U20 world championships in Slovakia in August, finishing fifth at 50 kg. Batres went 2-2 in the tournament, advancing to the semifinal before falling to eventual U20 world champion Yuu Jatsume of Japan, 11-0 by technical fall in 1:26.
Lopes, who won a Prep School national championship with Blair (NJ) Academy in 2022, is entering his third year at Lehigh. He went 10-4 as a freshman at 133 pounds in 2025, finishing fourth in the EIWA championships but saw limited action as a redshirt in 2026, wrestling in a few open tournaments.
Burrell is from New Rochelle, N.Y., but wrestled at GFA where he was a Prep School national champion in 2023 and a New England champion. He trains with South Side Wrestling Club.
Burrell is beginning his fifth season at the University of Virginia, where he competes at 197 pounds. He was 12-11 a year ago and has an overall collegiate record of 28-27.
Altomer, 23, is from Stuyvesant, N.Y. and wrestled at Northern Michigan. This is his third world championship appearance with Team USA. He placed 12th at the U23 world championships in Albania in 2023 and was 16th at the U20 world championship tournament in Jordan in 2023.
This year, he was fourth at the U.S. trials for the Senior world championship team.
Young was an athlete at Fairfield Ludlowe, where he won a Class LL championship in 2024 and was a two-time FCIAC champion at 174 pounds, and played soccer. He wrestled at the University of Scranton in 2025 and went 16-2 at the Division III school.
Greco Roman competition begins Monday and runs through Wednesday. Women’s freestyle is Wednesday through Friday with men’s freestyle on Friday through Sunday.
2026 U23 World Championships
At Las Vegas, Nevada
Oct. 12-18
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