Goyang in bidding to host 2022 Taekwondo Poomsae Championships

Taekwondo athletes perform at the 2018 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Taipei, Taiwan, 2018. / Courtey of Goyang City

By Jhoo Dong-chan

The City of Goyang will seek to host the next World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships slated for April 2022. Poomsae is a defined pattern of Taekwondo's defense-and-attack movements.

An official from the city in northern Gyeonggi Province said Thursday that it had submitted an application with World Taekwondo to host the event.

World Taekwondo was supposed to hold a committee meeting earlier this month in Lausanne, Switzerland, to choose the next host country for the event, but canceled the meeting, replacing it with a non-face-to-face conference call due May 12 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The 2022 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships would bring 1,000 new jobs. Also, its economic effects are estimated at up to 90 billion won if Goyang manages to host the event,” said Goyang Mayor Lee Jae-jun.

“I will do my best to develop Goyang into a sporting powerhouse city by hosting the 2022 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships.”

The city added it would send an invitation to North Korea to send a taekwondo demonstration team while expanding the event by inviting practitioners from countries that have never participated in the event before if it is chosen as the host city.

The official said the city has a good chance to be selected as it was the first to submit a bid.

If it is selected as a host city for the event, Goyang city said it will hold a briefing session during this year's World Taekwondo Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, in October.

The session will include Goyang's vision and its plan for the 2022 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships.

Incheon was the first Korean city to host the event in 2007.

The Goyang official said the city would use the Korea International Exhibition & Convention Center (KINTEX) as the venue for the event.

The World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships is a biannual event where players compete in 36 different disciplines. About 2,000 athletes and officials from 60 counties participated in the last event held in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2018.

This year's event was supposed to take place in Denmark next month, but was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.