(May 19, 2019) -- Two U.S. fighters came within one victory of securing a medal at the 2019 World Taekwondo Championships that concluded on Sunday in Manchester, United Kingdom. Madelynn Gorman-Shore (Littleton, Colo.) and Paige McPherson (Sturgis, S.D.) both reached the quarterfinal round of their respective divisions.
Fighting in the women's -73kg division on Wednesday's opening day of competition, Gorman-Shore notched consecutive victories over Peru's Camila Orihuela (22-0) and Greece's Evgenia Sarri (10-3) to reach the quarterfinal round. There she lost a tough 5-4 match to Turkey's Nafia Kus to dash her medal hopes.
McPherson was in action on Saturday in the women's -67kg competition. She opened the day with an 11-2 win against Poland's Elza Zbrzezna, and followed that up with an 11-4 win over Mexico's Victoria Tamez to advance to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinal round, McPherson would drop a 9-3 decision to eventual gold medalist Mengyu Zhang of China.
Other U.S. fighters who won matches during the five-day tournament were Anastasija Zolotic (Largo, Fla.), CJ Nickolas (Brentwood, Calif.), Thomas Rahimi (Irving, Texas), Alejandro Chang (Ashburn, Va.) and Jaysen Ishida (Waipahu, Hawaii).
Zolotic reached the round of 16 in the women's -53kg competition with wins over French Guyana's Tamara Zlatkovic (30-0) and Korea's Geum-Byeol Lim (29-9) before suffering an 18-9 defeat at the hands of Chinese Taipei's Po-Ya Su.
Nickolas defeated Slovakia's Filip Svec, 13-3, in his opening match of the men's -68kg competition before losing a 25-21 decision to Croatia's Deni Andrun Razic. In the men's -74kg action, Rahimi beat Azerbaijan's Aykhan Taghizade (11-8), then lost to Australia's Jack Marton, 13-9. Chang opened the men's -63kg division with an 18-5 win over Andorra's Abdou Taouil, but lost in the next round to Indonesia's Ibrahim Zarman, 24-22. Ishida, in the men's -80kg division, won his opening match over Nigeria's Hama Alzouma, 22-10, before losing a 7-5 decision to China's Linglong Chen.
Also competing for the U.S. were David Kim (WCAP) in the men's -54kg division, Damian Villa (Los Angeles, Calif.) in the men's -58kg class, Hanssel Llanos (Dallas, Texas) in men's -87kg, Jonathan Healy (Spring, Texas) in men's +87kg, Monique Rodriguez (Orlando, Fla.) in women's -46kg, Kayla Morales (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.) in women's -49kg, Desirae Rolaff (McKinney, Texas) in women's -57kg, Ara White (Largo, Fla.) in women's -62kg, and Hannah Keck (Plano, Texas) in women's +73kg.
The competition marked the first time the U.S. was shut out of the medals since 2013.
