COLUMBUS — Ben Davino made Ohio State wrestling history on Saturday night in Las Vegas, defeating Iukhan Dokturbek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan 4-1 to win the 61-kilogram freestyle gold medal at the U23 World Championships — the first U23 world title ever won by a Buckeye.
Davino, the 2026 NCAA runner-up at 133 pounds and a Big Ten champion, was dominant from the opening whistle at the Thomas & Mack Center. Across four wins he outscored his opponents 32-1, a tournament run that left little doubt about the gap between him and the field.
His road to gold ran through three continents. Davino opened with a 7-1 win over Iran’s Ebrahim Khari, then recorded consecutive technical falls — 11-0 over Japan’s Akito Mukaida in the quarterfinals and 10-0 over Romania’s Gabriel Whisenhunt in the semifinals — before closing out Dokturbek Uulu in a controlled 4-1 final.
“First world title,” Davino said afterward. “Yeah, first one. Feel great.” The breakthrough follows a stretch of high-profile losses that tested the young standout’s confidence; in Las Vegas he converted those lessons into the biggest result of his career, and the only gold medal won by the U.S. men’s freestyle group that session — Jayden James added silver at 74 kilograms and Coby Merrill bronze at 125.
Ohio State sent four other wrestlers to Las Vegas. Seth Shumate of Dublin, wrestling freestyle at 92 kilograms, won his qualification bout by technical fall, 11-0, over Turkmenistan’s Dovletgeldi Myradov and beat Ukraine’s Oleh Kuzmenko Taison 14-7 before withdrawing in the quarterfinals with an injury, defaulting to Italy’s Gabriele Niccolini while trailing 7-2; he finished eighth.
Ryder Rogotzke dropped his opening Greco-Roman match at 97 kilograms, 5-1, to Germany’s Darius Kiefer. Brothers Kade and Karson Brown, representing Canada in freestyle, also exited early — Karson fell in the round of 16 at 65 kilograms and Kade lost his qualification match at 70.
For Ohio State, Davino’s title is both a milestone and a marker: the program has produced Olympians and NCAA champions, but never a U23 world champion until Saturday. He returns to Columbus with a gold medal, a 32-1 scoring line, and the kind of international result that reshapes expectations heading into the college season.