First-Time Olympian Kristina Teachout Wins Bronze In Taekwondo, CJ Nickolas Just Misses A Medal

PARIS — Kristina Teachout took up taekwondo at age 5 with her eye on making it to the Olympic Games. Now the 18-year-old from Palm Bay, Florida, is an Olympic bronze medalist in the -67kg division.

“It feels amazing,” Teachout said after decisively beating Jie Song from China in two rounds. “It hasn't hit me yet. I was low key, like before I came out to the match, I was just like, envisioning everything, and like that made me emotional, but I need time to process it.”

Her bout with Song was anything but low-key. With taekwondo held in Paris’ majestic Le Grande Palais, the cavernous space only echoed the roaring crowd. As Teachout entered the stadium for her bronze-medal match, she danced into the stadium, making it clear she intended to win.

“I wouldn't do the sport of I didn't believe I can be an Olympic champion,” she said. “That mentality, to like win Olympic gold, that's something that's been instilled in me from a very young age.”

Teachout first discovered taekwondo when she and her sister noticed a martial arts school adjacent to the supermarket where the family shopped. The sport is a Korean martial art that made its Olympic debut in 2000 (after twice making the Olympic program as a demonstration sport). Competitors score points by landing kicks and punches to the torso or head, detected by electronic scoring systems in head and torso protectors. 

Since the Olympic Games Sydney 2000, the U.S. women have won four Olympic medals — now five with Teachout’s bronze.

Back at the martial arts academy, 5-year-old Teachout liked the sport right away.

“I liked the getting into the Olympics part, and like, the competitiveness, like how it challenged me and allowed me to expend my energy, I was very hyper,” Teachout explained.

“And I liked beating up on people,” she added with a laugh.

At age 14, she moved away from home — to Colorado Springs, Colorado — to pursue her Olympic dreams. She trained and took high school classes online.

“I made that sacrifice in order to do this at such a young age,” Teachout told TeamUSA.com leading into the Paris Games.

But the adjustment was difficult during her formative years. Looking back on the past four years, Teachout wished she had handled the transition differently.

“I would have told myself to) calm down and just trust the people around you and buy into it,” she said. “I think just being so young, it was a hard transition for me. But I had the right people to guide me. It just would have been a lot easier if I would have bought into it earlier.”

“But I wouldn't change that at all,” she added.

From Colorado, Teachout’s training group moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Then her first year in senior competition, she had her first big setback: a torn hamstring.

“I tore my left hamstring off my femur during a test match,” she said. “I kicked, and it ripped off.”

She recovered, and her results have soared. She won a series of medals at competitions in 2023, including a bronze at the Pan American Games last November.

Then came U.S. Olympic Trials in January 2024. She defeated Anastasija Zolotic, the 2020 Olympic gold medalist in the 57kg weight class.

“Mentally, I feel like I can do anything,” she told TeamUSA.com of the Olympic qualifying win. “Even with her accomplishments, that had nothing on me and my belief in myself. I truly believe I’m the best. I wanted to win for myself.”

Teachout started competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 by defeating France’s Magda Wiet-Henin 2-0 to advance to the quarterfinals. (At the Paris Games, the sport is governed by new rules. Similar to tennis, bouts are won in best-of-three rounds [two minutes each] rather than by cumulative points.)

Then during the quarterfinals, Teachout went three rounds against Hungary's Viviana Marton and lost the bout in a 2-1 decision. She then was pulled back into the repechage round, where she defeated Ruth Gbagbi of Cote d’Ivoire, overcoming a first round loss to win, 2-1.

This win put Teachout into the bronze medal match.

“I'm excited to get to my family,” she said shortly after the bronze-medal win. “I think when I see them, it's going to hit. I'm excited to have time to collect my thoughts.”

After Paris, Teachout has to get back to reality — finishing high school.

“I'm supposed to finish this month, guys,” she said with a laugh. “Right after I am done with this, I'm going to go finish my high school degree!”

While Teachout’s medal was a surprise for Team USA, CJ Nickolas was the number-two ranked taekwondoin in his weight class (-80kg) at the Paris tournament. But the 23-year-old world championship silver medalist came up just short, losing his bronze medal bout to top-ranked Simone Alessio, 2-0.

“I had fun the entire day,” said Nickolas, wrapped in a white leather jacket adorned with Olympic patches, a gift from a friend who’s so close Nickolas calls him a cousin. 

“It was magical, this place, I've never been in a venue like this before, and it was just beautiful, and it was super emotional, and I believed in myself, and I put the raw version of myself out there for everybody to see. It was a massive risk, and I failed. I came up short.”

Like Teachout, Nickolas also discovered taekwondo as a very young child. He was a 3-year-old, inspired by the Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles he saw on TV. He wanted to do a combat sport. Karate, or something like that. His mom, Denise, looked around and learned more about judo and taekwondo. Both offer a path to the Olympic Games.

“I didn’t want him in a going-nowhere sport,” Denise told Anne Killion of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Nickolas’ mom is a former gymnast and a wound-care nurse who learned taekwondo alongside her son.

But Nickolas’ journey in taekwondo was not a steady upward kick. In high school, he struggled, a skinny kid who couldn’t figure out what to do with his limbs after he grew nine inches. He now stands 6-foot 2.

“I was like Bambi,” Nickolas told Killion. “I didn’t have my bearings. I went through a lot of injuries. I wasn’t enjoying the sport, and I started running track and was good at that. So I was going to quit taekwondo and transition to track and maybe get a scholarship.”

Mom would not let him quit though, at least not until he had seen the sport through. Nickolas kept working and won a silver medal at junior world championships in 2018. 

Since then, Nickolas has progressed steadily, training in Charlotte, North Carolina, with coach Gareth Brown, a British coach who joined USA Taekwondo in 2017.

In 2022 and 2023, Nickolas won medals in four Grand Prixes and a gold at the Pan American Championships. Then he claimed silver at the 2023 world championships, ranking him second coming to Paris.

At the Paris 2024 Games, in the men’s -80kg division, Nickolas started the day with a 2-0 victory over Farzad Mansouri of the Refugee Olympic Team. With dynamic kicks, he then won his quarterfinal match against Faysal Sawadogo of Burkina Faso, 2-0, to advance to the semifinal. 

A 2-0 loss to Firas Katoussi of Tunisia 2-0 moved Nickolas into the bronze medal bout.

“On to the next one,” Nickolas said, still bouncing on his toes. 

“He’s the number one, I’m the number two, I’m going to take him,” predicted Nickolas of his fight with Alessio.

But Nickolas could not figure out how to better the Italian.

“He's a monster in the division,” said Nickolas of Alessio. “Other people have gotten him, and I just haven't clicked that code yet. My game plan today was no holds barred, stay on my tactic, just put it on the line. Risk everything. If I fail, I fail.

“And that's what happened, and it hurts a lot, man, because that's the most I've risked myself.”

It’s been 12 years since a U.S. male taekwondoin has won an Olympic medal. Terrence Jones won bronze in the featherweight class at the Olympic Games London 2012. The last (and only gold) was won by Steven López in 2000.

But Nickolas has more to give in the sport. And there is room on the white leather jacket for an Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 patch.

An award-winning freelance writer based in Vermont, Peggy Shinn is in Paris covering her eighth Olympic Games. She has contributed to TeamUSA.org since its inception in 2008.