Audrey Jimenez, a Sunnyside High School sophomore wrestling at 49 kg (108 pounds), came close to reaching the gold medal match of the 2021 Cadet World Championships at Hungary, Budapest, on Wednesday morning but lost 8-6 to Svenja Jungo of Switzerland in the semifinals.
Jimenez, representing Team USA, rallied from a 4-0 deficit after a takedown and exposure points by Jungo. She tied the match at 4 after a takedown before the end of the first period and another at the start of the second period.
Jungo scored four points with about one minute left on a blast double, and Jimenez scored her last two points with a takedown with 21 seconds left.
Jimenez will face either Italy’s Fabiana Rinella or Romania’s Delia Voiculescu for a chance at the bronze medal Thursday. Rinella and Voiculescu are wrestling in the consolation bracket.
Wiktoria Kamela of Poland and Nargiz Samadova of Azerbaijan are also in the consolation bracket, and the winner of that match will face Sevim Akbas of Turkey in the other bronze-medal semifinal.
The matches are available for viewing at Flo Wrestling for a fee.
Jimenez, the 2019 U15 Pan Am champion, reached the semifinals after three dominating 10-0 technical-fall victories using her effective leg lace.
She first defeated India’s Neha Chougale in only 34 seconds, needing one takedown before picking up four turns with the lace.
She then beat Kazakhstan’s Laura Ganikyzy in 1:03 after scoring two takedowns, making three turns on the second takedown with her lace for the victory.
The third opponent was Austria’s Sarah Lins, whom she defeated in 1:39. Jimenez again rolled Lins with her leg lace, scoring a takedown and two turns for a 6-0 lead. She then had two more takedowns.
Jimenez was recently ranked No. 1 in the nation among high school wrestlers at 106 pounds by The Open Mat coming off her state championship for Sunnyside. Jimenez made history becoming the first female in Tucson and Sunnyside to win a state championship.
Jimenez is being trained and coached by Sunnyside coach Anthony Leon, who is in Budapest with her. Leon has coached Sunnyside to four consecutive state titles.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator five years ago and is presently a special education teacher at Gallego Fine Arts Intermediate in the Sunnyside Unified School District
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