Aidan Squier wrestled back from an opening defeat and won bronze at 87 kg on Monday at the 2026 U20 World Wrestling Championships, giving NMU its first Junior/U20 World medal since 2019. He closed with a 6-6 win on criteria over Gabriel Stan after trailing 6-0, a finish that turned a rough start into a world medal in one long day of recovery.
The bronze matters now because it gives NMU a result it had not had at this level since Alston Nutter in 2019, and it also keeps the United States in the medal conversation as the tournament moves on. Squier had already come through two repechage wins before the bronze bout, beating Vladyslav Solodchuk 10-2 and then edging Gogi Kochalidze 6-4 after trailing 4-1 with 8 seconds left. Those were the kind of matches that can disappear quickly at this weight, but Squier kept finding ways back in.
That run was built on a much wider margin than the final scoreline suggests. Against Stan, Squier scored four points with a bodylock in the second period to erase a 6-0 deficit, then forced the bout to criteria and finished the job. The bronze came after Squier had already been beaten by Taizo Yoshida on Sunday, only for Yoshida to reach the bracket final and send him back into repechage. The path was narrow, but it was still open, and Squier took it three straight times.
Andy Bisek coached Squier through the run, and the result gives NMU a marker it can point to immediately. It also sharpens the picture for the rest of the week: Amryn Nutter, the youngest of the Nutter family, lost his opener to Kazybek Kalmagambetov 1-1 on criteria on Tuesday morning, but Kalmagambetov’s march to the final pulled him into repechage. That keeps a possible bronze alive for Nutter, even after a loss that was decided by the smallest possible margin.
For NMU, Squier’s bronze is not just a medal. It is proof that the program can still produce world-level Greco-Roman results, and it leaves Nutter with a live second chance that now carries even more weight.
