The World University Games have provided many future world champions in a range of sports with essential experience - but that doesn't mean all future world champions win medals.

At the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei, Mexican taekwondo athlete Carlos Sansores was not expected to get a medal in a men's under-87 kilograms field loaded with talent and experience.

And indeed he didn't, as he lost his opening contest against South Korea's Cho Min-Kwang in the round-of-16, 8-7.

Cho did not reach the podium, but of those who did three had already won big titles or were about to.

Event favourite Radik Isayev of Azerbaijan, the 2015 world champion and reigning Olympic champion, had to settle for a bronze.

The other bronze medallist, Jonathan Healy of the United States, would win gold at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima.

Silver medallist Maicon Andrade, who had won bronze at the 2015 Universiade, had already made history by becoming the first male Brazilian taekwondo athlete to earn an Olympic medal having earned bronze in his home Rio Games the year before.

For gold medallist Rafael Ayukaev of Russia, however, this appeared to be a career high point.

For Sansores, by contrast, it was a jumping-off point.

In 2018, he won the heavyweight title at the Pan American Championships, and the young athlete from Chetumal carried his form over to 2019 to produce an impressive performance at the World Championships in Manchester.

After defeating Isaev 7-2 in the quarter-final the Mexican advanced to the final, where he lost 9-5 to Cuba's 2013 world champion Rafael Alba.

Soon afterwards he competed in the Pan American Games in Lima, where he earned bronze in the under-80kg category as Healy claimed gold.

By the time the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics came around, Sansores was a medal contender, seeded fourth.

After a scant series of events in 2020 due to the pandemic, he added a silver to the Pan American Championships gold he had won in 2018 and swiftly earned revenge for his defeat in the final by beating Healy in the Mexico Open gold medal bout in Cancun.

Having arrived in Tokyo with high hopes, however, he soon found himself back down at ground level as he lost his opening contest 6-4 to Croatia's 13th seed Ivan Sapina.

But if his first Olympics were a letdown, Sansores set about restoring his pride and prestige in 2022, which he began by regaining the Pan American Championship in Punta Cana, beating Healy in the final.

The season's highlight of the World Championships, in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, offered him the opportunity of earning a prestigious home victory - and he took it.

Once again he found himself up against Healy, this time in the quarter-final, but he earned a win to advance for a contest with Sajjad Mardani of Iran, the 2013 world silver medallist. He duly reached the final, where he earned gold with a 5-3, 4-0 win over Ivan Garcia of Spain.

Sansores followed up with a fabulous run in the Grand Prix final in Riyadh, reaching the final but losing to the London 2012 gold medallist Cheick Sallah Cisse of Ivory Coast.