The second day of Kyorugi competition featured USA Fly-weights Jazzmyn Paguirigan and Tyler Sawyer in the early matches followed by welter-weights Tasha Pruter and Phillip Yun. Paguirigan opened the day on a positive note with a hard-fought win against Chinese Mongolia. USA was the aggressor in a tight 1-1 match going into round-3. After giving up a defensive point to go down 1-2, Paguirigan kept up the pressure and fought back to an exciting late round come-back 4-3 win, advancing to the round of eight where she eventually lost 0-5 to Turkey. USA’s Tyler Sawyer took on Portugal’s Braganca. Sawyer was giving up nearly 8 inches in height to Portugal whose defensive cut-kick proved too much for the USA. Saywer lost 1-3. Braganca was silver at 2011 Worlds in Korea.

USA’s Phillip Yun wowed the Chinese crowd with his first match win over Germany’s Sebastian Lehman. Yun/Lehman match was a nail-biter with Yun scoring a variety of techniques including punches during regular time. In overtime, USA timed a perfect counter punch against a race attack for a 5-4 win. Team Leader Hanwon Lee had both the USA and Chinese fans roused into thunderous chants of “USA-JAIO, USA-JAIO” in what turned into one of the best early round crowd pleasers. In the round of 16, Yun used his speed, aggression, and excellent ring-management to defeat Mexico’s Sergio Gurrola 6-1. Yun advanced into the quarter finals to take on Morocco. Narrowly missing a blazing jump-spin heel kick that would have tied things up, Yun lost to Morocco 4-9, who went on to finish bronze.

USA’s Tasha Pruter opened the female welter division with a domination 10-0 win over Benin. Pruter, a freshman from University of Missouri, KC used cut-kick/head-shot combos to control the entire match, frustrating her opponent and advancing to the quarter-final round. Using the same tactics, Tasha fought a close match against Korea’s Seu Mi Woo but eventually lost 1-2 in a hear-breaker.

Team spirits were high following today’s action. Under the leadership of Dr. Russell Ahn, Head Coach Tim Ghormley, and leaders Hanwon Lee and Alex Antipa met with Korea’s Collegiate Federation Director Hwan-Sun Lee, Executive Director Chung-Young Lee, and Secretary-General Eun Seok Park to discuss next year’s Collegiate Championships, future exchanges with the USA and growth of collegiate Taekwondo.

See the photo gallery.
Watch the event live at www.livefisu.tv/watchlive.

— Alex Antipa, Team Manager