WT President Chungwon Choue's New Year Message for 2020

Dear members and friends of the World Taekwondo family,

Another busy and successful year has passed for World Taekwondo.

2019 began with the outstanding World Para-Taekwondo Championships in

Antalya, Turkey. Nearly 400 athletes from 69 nations took part, making it the

biggest tournament in the sport's history and reinforcing the significant growth

of para-taekwondo around the world. Para-taekwondo’s growing global status

had been confirmed just weeks before, when the International Paralympic

Committee (IPC) Governing Board announced that para-taekwondo will be

included in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games after making its debut at

Tokyo 2020.

In May, it was the turn of Manchester, Great Britain, to host the 24th World

Taekwondo Championships. The city is the birthplace of the World

Taekwondo Grand-Prix. A 4D camera rig recorded the action at the semi-finals

and finals to provide taekwondo’s global fanbase with 360-degree angles of our

athletes’ breath-taking performances. A six-person refugee team competed in

the tournament as part of our commitment to providing opportunities to those

who need it most. And, we welcomed IOC President Thomas Bach to the

event for a second time, following his visit to the World Championships in

Muju, Korea, in 2017.

The 2019 World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series began in June in the Italian

capital of Rome where poomsae was included for the first-time at a Grand Prix

event. During the competition, we became the first International Federation

to host its awarding ceremony at the historic Colosseum, which was a very

special moment for our sport. At that time, the World Taekwondo

Demonstration performed across six Italian cities to the delight of

taekwondo enthusiasts across the country. The tour was being held under the

theme ‘Peace through Taekwondo’ which is a key priority of World

Taekwondo.

The Grand Prix Series then made its way to Chiba, Japan in September and

Sofia, Bulgaria in October. It was the first-time both cities hosted a World

Taekwondo Grand Prix event and it reflected the global appetite to host our

events. Moscow, Russia provided the perfect finale to the Series as it hosted the

Grand Prix Finals and Gala Awards.

Italy was also host to the Summer Universiade in Naples during which

taekwondo offered the third-largest number of medals of any sport. The 2019

World Taekwondo Cadet Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, showcased

taekwondo’s up-and-coming young talent.

Supporting our good friends at the Global Association of International Sports

Federations (GAISF), the World Taekwondo Demonstration Team

captivated spectators at the inaugural World Urban Games in Budapest,

Hungary in September.

As part of World Taekwondo’s initiative to find new ways to showcase the

sport, the third edition of the World Taekwondo Beach Championships took

place in Sahl Hasheesh, Egypt in October.

At the World Taekwondo Extraordinary Council Meeting in Moscow, the

Council strengthened its policies on governance, anti-doping and athlete

welfare. Furthermore, we appointed our first-ever female vice president, IOC

Member, Aïcha Garad Ali of Djibouti. ​

At the same meeting, World Taekwondo welcomed the Faroe Islands

Taekwondo Federation as our 210th Member National Association (MNA).

During the year, we once again honored our commitment to fulfilling our social

responsibility and leveraging the power of taekwondo for good. We conducted a

series of joint demonstration events with the International Taekwon-Do

Federation (ITF) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of taekwondo’s

inclusion into the Olympic Movement. Events took place in Vienna, Austria;

in the Olympic Capital of Lausanne; and at the United Nations Office in

Geneva, with IOC President, Thomas Bach, and the United Nations Office

Director General, Michael Moller, among the distinguished guests.

To ensure all athletes are involved in the build up to the Tokyo 2020 Games,

World Taekwondo funded 19 Olympic hopefuls as part of the ‘Booyoung

Dream Programme’ in Muju, Korea.

World Taekwondo was recognised for its ongoing commitment to reducing its

carbon footprint through the joint IOC-DOW "Carbon Initiative Award", as

we continue to pave the way to building a more sustainable future.

World Taekwondo received FISU’s ‘Best International Sports Federation’

award in recognition of the federation’s significant contribution to the

development of the University Sports Movement. Universiade veteran, Armin

Hadipour, was awarded ‘Best Male Athlete’ following his third consecutive

gold medal at the 2019 Summer Universiade. We also signed an MoU with

FISU to create Sport Peace Corps.

Our flagship charity programme, the Humanitarian Taekwondo Center at the

Azraq camp in Jordan for Syrian refugees, went from strength to strength and

by the end of 2019 had graduated nine black belts including two female.

We collaborated with United World Wrestling (UWW) to host the

"Aspire2gether for Peace" event, which was attended by Jordanian royalty,

taekwondo and wrestling athletes. Through the event, we showed we are ready

to work with all sports to provide hope and inspiration to refugees and displaced

people.

World Taekwondo also held the opening ceremony of the World Taekwondo

Cares Projects in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

We signed MoUs with five Olympic International Federations (IFs): Wrestling,

Judo, Badminton, Table Tennis, and Hockey. We also signed with two

non-Olympic IFs: Muay Thai and Sambo. We expect to sign with more IFs in

2020.

All of these achievements over the past year would not have been possible

without your hard work and support.

But even following such a successful year, we are still confident we can achieve

even more in 2020. It is, of course, an Olympic year, with the Games being

hosted in Tokyo, Japan. But it is also the 20th anniversary of taekwondo

being included in the Olympic Games having first been included at Sydney

2000. We have come a very long way in the last 20 years and Olympic inclusion

has helped to elevate taekwondo into a truly global sport.

That said, we continue to innovate and push boundaries and taekwondo in

Tokyo 2020 will see three notable firsts

A mixed-team demonstration will take place between the regular matches,

showcasing this highly entertaining format. For maximum visual impact, a 4D

camera rig will be used for the first-time at the Olympics and the new

competition uniform will be showcased during the Games.

And our para-athletes will make their debut at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic

Games. I am fully convinced that para-taekwondo will be very successful in the

Paralympics.

With the battle for Olympic qualification slots now underway across all

continents, I wish all athletes - including, those refugees fighting under the WT

flag - the very best of luck.

I wish all friends and family a happy end to 2019 and look forward to working

with you to make 2020 a successful Olympic and Paralympic year and a

great year for World Taekwondo.

Yours in taekwondo,

Chungwon Choue,

President, World Taekwondo

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