The President of the WTF, Chungwon Choue, has announced that the project aimed to ensure a successful holding of the Taekwondo competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, called “Project Rio”, is officially on.

The President of the WTF, Chungwon Choue, has announced that the project aimed to ensure a successful holding of the Taekwondo competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, called “Project Rio”, is officially on.



President Choue declared that our sport’s reform will continue through this project in a recent meeting with Korean journalists.


According to Dr. Choue, the first step of “Project Rio” is the WTF Grand Prix, which will get together the top ranked athletes of each category, ensuring a high level event. The objective of the WTF is to increase the dynamism of our sport so that it gets more attention from the media.


“We believe that the creation of a competition with the top ranked athletes around the world will get a lot of attention from the media”, stated President Choue.


The WTF plans the Grand Prix to be held 5 times every year, with the first edition pressumably happening in London next December, a point which is still to be confirmed.


Another element of “Project Rio” is the TK-5 Team competition. This modality was used for the first time at the World Cup Team Championships, which were held last November in Aruba. The new system proved to be really useful in promoting a more proactive attitude among participants in comparison with single competitions.


“Project Rio” will also work on the evolution of the PSS technology. The most relevant modification will be the inclusion of the electronic head gear in the system, which will enable the automatic scoring of all head kicks. The WTF plans to introduce this upgrade during this year.


President Choue also declared that the main key for Taekwondo’s permanence in the Olympic Programme was the big success of London 2012.


“In my opinion, having held a perfect competition during the London Olympic Games has influenced in about a 90% the IOC Executive Board’s decision. If the competition would have been surrounded by noise -people talking about false or unclear rumours, etc.-, it would have been really difficult”, commented President Choue.


Taekwondo has achieved its permanence within the Olympic Programme, but it will not content with that. Our sport will continue progressing and improving.


President Choue confirmed as well that he will be running again for WTF President at the elections scheduled for next July.


WTM


Sung Jin Park


© World Taekwon Media

• 00:00
• 2020/05/01
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