Kennedy Blades in Astana: How Year Two Ended
Same color. Different story. Blades fought back from a buzzer-beater loss to win her second straight World bronze, and the Ishii rematch never came.
Kennedy Blades left Astana with her second straight World bronze at 68 kg, and she earned it the hard way: a last-second loss, then two wins in a row, the last one by pin. And the Ishii rematch everyone circled? It never happened, because Ami Ishii didn't make it out of her first match.
The run
- Opener: pinned Laura Koehler (Germany) in 1:40
- Loss: pinned by Meerim Zhumanazarova (Kyrgyzstan) at 5:59
- Repechage: beat Srishti (India), 12-1 tech fall
- Bronze medal: pinned Delgermaa Enkhsaikhan (Mongolia) at 5:12
The opener took 100 seconds. Statement made.
The loss stings. Blades led Zhumanazarova 2-0 and was one second from the next round. Zhumanazarova got the fall right at the buzzer. Brutal way to lose, and it sent Blades to the long road.
The bounce-back is the whole story. Srishti is a four-time age-group World medalist, and Blades picked her apart for a 12-1 tech fall. Then she pinned Enkhsaikhan, who had beaten the Russian who knocked out Ishii, to lock up bronze.
And Ishii? The two-time world champ led 6-4 at the break of her very first match and got pinned by Russia's Elizaveta Petliakova. The woman Blades spent a year chasing went home on day one.
What it means
Two World bronzes in two years at a weight she only moved to in 2025. That's not a fluke. That's a fixture.
The gap is now one match. Zhumanazarova, the woman who beat her, went on to wrestle China's Jia Long for gold. Blades was one second away from being in that conversation.
She's 23, she's all-in on 2028, and she's spent two straight Worlds proving she can recover from a loss. Next year she'll be looking to skip the recovery part.
Catch up on how year one went: Kennedy Blades' First Worlds: Bronze, a Lesson and a Rematch Waiting in Astana
