Bermuda’s contingent found the going tough at the Wushu World Championships in Brazil.

Kaelin Cox, Ryah Symonds and Krista Dyer were unable to build on the success the island achieved in the previous event in Texas, where the latter earned a silver medal in the women’s sanda competition.

Dyer and fellow women’s sanda athlete, tournament debutant Symonds, both made cameo appearances at the biennial event after being eliminated in their opening matches.

“Krista went down in two rounds in a well-fought match,” coach and Bermuda Sanshou Association president Garon Wilkinson told The Royal Gazette.

“She received a warning at the beginning of the match for having to be called to the lei tai (elevated fighting arena) numerous times. This was a result of receiving the protective headgear late from the organisers.

“It was a bit of a mix-up before the match started and as coach I always try to get the protective gear on in sufficient time. As soon as we got the gear, the organisers were pressuring us to get her out to the lei tai and she was out there without me at first and it was just a bit of a rush.

“Ryah lost by a 12-point spread to powerhouse Iran but fought extremely well as a young lady, 19 years old, competing in her first World Championships. I was really pleased with her deportment and her maturity in her preparation.

“She probably could not have gotten a worst draw in the first round, so a tough one for Ryah to get in her first world event.”

Taolu athlete Cox finished 26th out of 44 in the southern fist discipline, 32nd in southern broadsword and 31st in the southern staff event.

Cox found the southern broadsword and southern staff disciplines particularly tough as he was docked precious points for failing to execute difficulty movements.

“Kaelin had a disappointing score of 6.896 in southern broadsword. He failed to land a number of degree-of-difficulty movements and was also over the time limit for which he received deductions. The performance score in the southern staff was 2.44 and without deductions he would have got 9.44,” Wilkinson said.

“The way taolu works, there’s mandatory movements that you must complete and you have to indicate on a form the order in which these mandatory movements are going to appear.

“Then they have what they call degree-of=difficulty movements and they are all worth a certain score and if you don’t hit those movements the way they’re supposed to you get deductions.

“We know the mistakes, so we need to work on perfecting the execution of the movements.”

Dyer was making her fourth appearance at the event, Cox his third and Symonds her first. Cox and Dyer prepared for the championships in training camps in Peru and China.