Injured Stevenson suffers first round defeat at World Championships

GREAT Britain's miserable run continued at the World Taekwondo Championships in Copenhagen.

DISAPPOINTED: Did Sarah Stevenson's hand injury conspire against her at the World Championships in Copenhagen? (Getty Images)

Olympic bronze medallist Sarah Stevenson lost her first bout to eventual gold medallist, China's Ying Ying Hang, in the women's middleweight category.

Stevenson - a world champion in 2001 and a silver medallist in 2005 - had arrived in Copenhagen brimming with confidence, despite having a metal plate inserted in her finger, after breaking her hand in training late last month.

It's another set-back for the 26-year old, who was embroiled in a scoring controversy during last year's Olympics in Beijing.

Team-mate Craig Brown fared better in the men's middleweight but he was defeated by two-points in a close-fought quarter-final with Italy's Carlo Molfefetta, who went on to lose in the final to Turkey's Bahri Tanrikulu.

Featherweight Tony Grisman also missed out on the semi-finals, and a guaranteed medal, as he lost by a single point to Mexico's Idulio Islas in the men's featherweight.

Elsewhere, men's bantamweight Michael Harvey couldn't progress beyond the first round while women's bantamweight Caroline Fisher was comprehensively beaten by Germany's Melanie Hartung in the second round.