World Taekwondo marks 50th anniversary of founding

By Chungwon Choue

World Taekwondo (WT) marked the 50th anniversary of its founding on May 28.

WT is the organization that administers the Olympic sport of taekwondo worldwide. WT was recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the sport's global governing body in 1980.

With its headquarters in Seoul, Korea, and another office in Lausanne, Switzerland, WT has a global membership of 213+1 countries and territories. The "plus one" denotes refugees, as WT fully supports refugee athletes. Namibia became the 213th WT member country as the WT General Assembly in Baku, Azerbaijan unanimously approved the African country as a full member on May 28.

Since June 2004, I have served as president of WT, succeeding Kim Un-yong, who did a great job of putting taekwondo on the official Olympic program.

The primary mission of WT is to maintain its Olympic status. That's why WT has focused on governance reform and the survival of taekwondo as an Olympic sport in the early years of my WT presidency. The IOC started evaluating each summer and winter Olympic sports' status from 2005.

I launched a WT Reform Committee in late 2004 to produce a 200-page reform report. Since then, WT has evolved in all sectors, including competition rules and management as well as refereeing and judging.

Years of WT's strenuous efforts helped taekwondo consolidate its Olympic status.

Since its debut as an Olympic sport in 2000 in Sydney, taekwondo has been featured in every edition of the Olympic Games. It has also been confirmed for the 2024 Paris and 2028 Los Angeles Olympic programs. Taekwondo also debuted as an official para sport at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.

On the occasion of WT's 50th anniversary, my special appreciation goes to all the masters who worked for the promotion of taekwondo abroad in the 1960s and 1970s.

Starting in 2008, WT started to think seriously about its social responsibility as an Olympic sport federation.

WT launched the Taekwondo Peace Corps (TPC) in 2008 to share the spirit of taekwondo and to demonstrate that sport can contribute to promoting world peace.

The TPC, under the theme of "World Peace through the Great Taekwondo Spirit," was the first global peace movement to appear from the taekwondo community.

On the first TPC mission, seven teams were dispatched on July 5, 2008 for about one to two months to five countries ― Russia, India, Pakistan, Paraguay and China. Each team consisted of four people, mostly university students ― three Taekwondo practitioners with at least 3rd dan black belts and one with proficient language skills.

The TPC was expanded into the World Taekwondo Peace Corps Foundation in 2009, which has dispatched so far over 2,500 volunteers to 123 countries. I how the WT-initiated TPC program will be expanded into a new entity: the "Sport Peace Corps." That would involve a wide range of Olympic sports, promoted to developing nations and vulnerable populations, in cooperation with the United Nations and the IOC.

To help empower refugees around the world, WT assisted in establishing the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation (THF) in April 2016 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

I officially announced WT's plan for the launch of the THF at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept.21, 2015, the U.N. International Day of Peace.

Under its mission "Empowering the Powerless," the THF supports refugees and displaced persons worldwide by training them in the sport and martial art of taekwondo. The THF is now running taekwondo programs at refugee camps in Jordan, Rwanda, Turkey, Switzerland, France, Eswatini and Mexico.

WT also started its in-house "Taekwondo Cares" program in early 2016 to help fulfill its social responsibility as an international sport federation under the IOC.

Under the mission of "Taekwondo for All and World Peace through Taekwondo," the Cares program is designed to help promote taekwondo as a sport to empower those in developing countries, such as orphans, street children, reformatory inmates, alcohol and drug addicts, female household victims, etc.

With financial support from the Asia Development Foundation, WT has carried out its one-year Cares projects in eight countries: Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Timor-Leste and Pakistan.

Taekwondo has even played a role in the promotion of peace on the Korean Peninsula, from where the sport originated. The Seoul-based WT and the North Korea-led International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) performed joint demonstrations during the opening ceremony of the 2015 World Taekwondo Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia on May 12, 2015; and at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships in Muju, Korea on June 24 and 30.

The joint demonstrations were made possible due to a protocol of accord, which was signed by the heads of WT and the ITF in Nanjing, China on Aug. 21, 2014 with the attendance of IOC President Thomas Bach.

"Peace is More Precious than Triumph" is the slogan of WT. The slogan is from the title of a book by Young Seek Choue, my late father. Inspired by my father's grand peace vision, I have dedicated most of my time as president of WT to the realization of peace through the Olympic sport of taekwondo.

Sport has a powerful role to play in addressing social issues and achieving global targets. Through taekwondo, WT promotes values such as inclusiveness, respect, tolerance, courtesy and integrity.

WT has evolved over the past 50 years, thus solidifying its status as a core Olympic sport. Taekwondo is the predecessor of the "Korean Wave," or hallyu ― the global spread of Korean pop culture. As Korea's gift to the world, Taekwondo serves for the benefit of all mankind ― "Hongik Ingan" in Korean.

Within the space of half a century, taekwondo has been promoted as a peace-loving, combat sport, greatly beloved by people all around the world.

Chungwon Choue serves as President of World Taekwondo and Chairman of The Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation.