Mariia Yefremova
Mariia Yefremova (), also transliterated as Mariya Yefremova, is a Ukrainian freestyle wrestler. Competing in the 53 kg weight class, she won the gold medal at the 2026 European Wrestling Championships in Tirana, Albania, defeating defending European champion Maria Prevolaraki in the final. Before winning at senior level, Yefremova was a two-time U17 world champion and won medals at the European U20 and World U20 championships.
Career
Yefremova is from Bakhmut, Ukraine. She achieved international success in age-group wrestling from her early teens. In 2021, she won the 49 kg title at the U17 World Wrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary. She won all four of her bouts without conceding a point, defeating Wiktoria Kamela, Nargiz Samadova, Sevim Akbaş and Svenja Jungo on her way to the title.
In 2022, Yefremova moved up to the 53 kg weight class and won the European U17 title in Bucharest. The same year, she defended her world U17 title at the World U17 Wrestling Championships in Rome, becoming a two-time U17 world champion. United World Wrestling described her as unbeaten internationally at the time of her second world U17 title.
In 2023, she won the gold medal in the 53 kg event at the European U20 Wrestling Championships in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She defeated Vivien Matyi, Anna Tieliegina and Amory Andrich before beating Azerbaijan's Gultakin Shirinova in the final. Later that year, Yefremova won the silver medal in the 53 kg event at the World U20 Wrestling Championships in Amman, Jordan. She defeated Nikol Krasimirova Krumova, Gultakin Shirinova and Katie Brianna Gomez to reach the final, where she lost to India's Antim Antim.
In early 2024, Yefremova was included in Ukraine's senior women's wrestling team after winning the Ukrainian Cup. Ukrainian media described her as one of the young wrestlers moving from junior competition into the senior national team.
At the 2026 European Wrestling Championships in Tirana, Yefremova made her senior European Championships debut in the women's freestyle 53 kg event. She defeated Natalia Malysheva 5–1 in the qualification round, Carla Jaume Soler by fall in the quarter-finals and Vanesa Kaladzinskaya 9–3 in the semi-finals to reach the final. In the final, she defeated Greece's Maria Prevolaraki 2–1 and won her first senior European title.