PARIS, France (Aug 6, 2024) – A day before the Taekwondo competition kicks off in Paris, World Taekwondo gathered in the city’s OLY House to celebrate the sport’s three decades of inclusion in the Olympic program.
Taekwondo was confirmed onto the Olympic program at a meeting of the IOC Congress in the French capital in 1994. It has been a medal event at all Summers Games since Sydney 2000.
OLY House is a classic French mansion, complete with gardens, in central Paris. It has been converted into a showpiece of Olympism, open to Olympians, for the duration of the Games.
Today’s event celebrating Taekwondo’s 30 years in the Olympics included a champagne reception and VIP speeches and gift presentations.
A video retrospective of Taekwondo’s prior 30 years was played, and – wrapping up the event in spectacular style - the WT Demo Team performed on OLY House’s lawn.
Among the many VIPs WT President Chungwon Choue welcomed to today’s event were IOC Vice President Ser Miang Ng, IOC Member and International Skating Union (ISU) President Jae Youl Kim, China IOC Member Zaiqing Yu, Honorary IOC Member Ivan Dibos and Deputy Mayor of Paris in Charge of Sports, Paralympics and the Seine Karim Ziadi and OLY House host, President of World Olympians Association Joël Bouzou OLY.
Ng congratulated WT on three decades in the Games and on its innovations and reforms, saying that Olympic Taekwondo had transitioned “from strength to strength.” Moreover, as “a pathway sport,” it had provided multiple developing nations with their entry to the Olympics and to the medal podium, he said.
He also thanked the federation for its charitable programs for refugees and displaced persons, conducted under the banner of the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation.
Choue, in a speech laced through with humor, welcomed the WT global family to Paris.
He noted that WT’s charitable arm, the THF, offers training in Taekwondo to the inhabitants of Jordan’s Azraq Refugee Camp. The program is not restricted to Taekwondo: A total of eight Olympic sports will be represented in the next “Hopes and Dreams” festival to be held in Azraq, he said.
Also in the Middle East, he praised Saudi Taekwondo for qualifying its first-ever female athlete into the Olympics.
Choue also touched on tomorrow’s Taekwondo. A futuristic format, Virtual Taekwondo, is being pioneered by and in Singapore, he said.
The Paris 2024 Taekwondo competition, to take place in front of 8,000 in-venue spectators, begins its four day run at the iconic and historic Grand Palais tomorrow.
Tickets are sold out.
