Senior Master Marc Jouan congratulates Stephanie McGann after she won the American Taekwondo Tournament of Champions title in X-Treme Weapons in 2023. Eight West Chester ATA athletes will be looking to bring home the gold later this month.
WEST CHESTER — A large contingent of local Chester County-area martial arts athletes will be competing at the American Taekwondo Association’s Tournament of Champions which takes place July 23rd through 28th in Phoenix, Arizona.
T.O.C. qualifiers must hold the rank of Black Belt and either finished in the top ten for the 2023-24 tournament season for points in the world or win their event at District tournaments held in June.
Competitors are eligible to compete in as many eight events, should they qualify: Forms, Weapons, Combat sparring, Sparring, Creative Forms, Creative Weapons, X-treme forms and X-treme weapons.
Competing at the Tournament of Champions are eight local athletes: Payton Siegfried (competing in all eight events), Stephanie McGann (all eight events), Hannah Alderman (Forms, Combat Sparring), Ethan Fernandez (X-Treme Forms, X-Treme Weapons), Lila Moffett (Combat Sparring), Saket Banda (Weapons), Aubry Dowd (Weapons) and Tobias Reynolds (Sparring).
Dr. McGann, a local dentist, will be looking to defend her first World Championship in X-Treme Weapons. Another ATA West Chester athlete, Master Kammas Kersch, who won a World Championship in 2023 for Combat Sparring, is taking a few well-earned weeks off after welcoming her first child last month. Both McGann and Kersch’s wins in 2023 were the first world titles in the school’s 15-year history.
Additional athletes from ATA West Chester will also compete in the Super 20, which takes place July 27th & 28th and is open to all belt ranks — for the same eight events. This is the kick off for the 2024-25 tournament season.
The following athletes will be competing all eight events at the Super 20: Stephanie McGann, Payton Siegfried, Mae Millard and Mike McGann.
Additionally, Hannah Alderman (Forms, Weapons, Combat Sparring and Sparring), Saket Banda (Forms, Weapons, Combat Sparring and Sparring), Ethan Fernandez (Forms, Weapons, Combat sparring, Sparring, X-treme forms and X-treme weapons), Vincent Jouan (Forms, Weapons and Sparring), Aditi Banda (Forms, Weapons, Combat Sparring and Sparring), Revanth Kosaraju (Forms, Weapons and Sparring), Tobias Reynolds (Weapons and Sparring), and Samuel Jouan (Forms, Combat Sparring and Sparring) all will compete in the Super 20.
Another key feature — in addition to multiple days of seminars for students, teachers and school owners — is the opportunity to test for rank advancement (all ranks of Fourth Degree Black Belt and higher must be tested for at a national-level tournament.)
Three ATA West Chester high ranks will be testing for rank advancement in Phoenix: Nicole McCarthy for 4th Degree Black Belt, Ethan Fernandez for 4th Degree Black Belt, and ATA West Chester Co-owner, Senior Master Marc Jouan will be testing for his for 8th Degree Black Belt, a first for West Chester and Chester County.
