Jeffrey Figueroa almost made it to the medal round while Olympian Tshomlee Go and Kathleen Alora bowed out in the second round as jinx continued to hound the Philippine team in the World Taekwondo Championships at the Ballerup Super Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Figueroa opened up his men’s featherweight campaign with a 3-2 victory over Sweden’s Sebastian Lai before Daniel Manz of Germany, 10-5, in the second round.

The Filipino bet, however, was waylaid by Idulio Islas of Mexico, 6-2, in the round of 16, thus ruining his bid to advance to the medal round.

A victory for Figueroa against Islas could have assured him of a bronze medal in the quarterfinals.

Go, a two-time Olympian, scored a 5-2 win over Anatol Kachuk of Bulgaria but was edged out by Fariz Aliyev of Azerbaijan in a thrilling encount6er, 4-3.

Kathleen Alora, competing in the women’s bantamweight division, dominated Diahara Toure of Mali, 7-2, in the opening round but just like other RP bets before her, she suffered a 12-3 defeat at the hands of Southeast Asian rival Sarita Phongsri of Thailand.

Phongsri settled for the silver medal after a close 5-4 defeat to eventual winner Danielle Pelham of the United States.

The RP team is now pinning its hopes on its last three fighters – Kirstie Alora (women’s middle), Japoy Lizardo (men’s fin) and Criselda Roxas (women’s light) – who are expected to go all-out against their respective rivals to salvage some measure of pride.

The RP bets are using the event as their tune-up tournament for the Laos SEA Games this December.

But with the way they’re performing, they need to raise their level of game a notch higher to have a fair chance of winning medals in the SEA Games.