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DRAPER — A young Utah martial artist recently won a world taekwondo title — all while he had two pieces of glass lodged in his foot.
Ethan Fineshriber, 13, of Draper, won world titles in two separate events last week at the American Taekwondo Association World Championships in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The final event in which Ethan was scheduled to compete was the extreme weapons competition, during which he performs tricks and moves with a bo staff, according to his mother, Mara Fineshriber.
Mara Fineshriber said she had sent him off to practice his routine before it was his turn to perform. A few minutes later, he came back and told her he could barely walk because it felt like something was in his foot.
“Every time I stepped… it would poke it and it would hurt so bad,” Ethan said. “I had to be really careful not to land on that foot.”
Having already earned a world title in a previous event, Ethan didn’t want to continue with his last event, Mara Fineshriber said. But she told him he at least needed to go out and try, since he had trained really hard for the event, which only happens once a year.
Ethan went through with the performance, being careful not to land on the injured foot. It was good enough to earn him another world title.
“It was really an amazing feeling just knowing I did something like that,” Ethan said.
After his performance, a parent of another child who was competing examined Ethan's injured foot and used tweezers to retrieve what they discovered was two pieces of glass in his foot, according to Mara Fineshriber.
She said she has no idea how the glass got into Ethan’s foot, especially since all the mats that were used at the event were brand new.
After the glass was taken out, one of Ethan’s peers, who was also competing, put Ethan on his back and carried him to the medal ceremony, Mara Fineshriber said.
“It was a pretty neat moment,” she said.
Ethan went on to compete and earn first place in four other events during the weekend — giving him a strong start to the new competition year, Mara Fineshriber said. They changed up some of his routines so that he wouldn’t land on his injured foot.
Ethan, who was diagnosed on the autism spectrum at age 3, started practicing martial arts when he was 7, his mother said. She wanted him to take part in a sport in order for him to make friends and be more active, she said.
Before he started, he was rarely social, but he has made friends and was a martial arts natural from the start, Mara Fineshriber said.
“That’s what really made him come out of his shell,” she said.
Ethan said he finds martial arts very rewarding, and he is glad that he’s been able to make friends.
“It’s one of the best things you can do because it’s something that is really educational in many, many ways,” Ethan said. “There’s a lot of amazing life lessons that are taught in karate that you don’t get taught in other sports.”
Ethan won a previous world taekwondo title in 2016.
