Master Adrian Tranter (Chairman of BTCB and Commonwealth Taekwondo Union), Master Ross Hartnett (former CTU president) and Dr William Darlington (BTCB Vice-chairman and CTU Secretary-General) have been working since 2002 to get taekwondo into the Commonwealth Games.

As part of that process, the CTU held two successful Commonwealth Championships (Brisbane, 2006; Winnipeg, 2008) with a third planned in Chennai, India, in January 2011. The CTU met Commonwealth Games Federation officials in 2004 and sent a delegation to the WTF in 2005. (Right) The WTF President and Secretary-General were very supportive of the project. In January 2010, the WTF submitted its bid for inclusion in the Games. The CTU assisted with improving the bid application.

The WTF sent four delegates (Mr Philippe Bouedo, Chairman, WTF Games Committee; Dr William Darlington, CTU Secretary-General; Mr Usman Dildar, UK Coordinator, WTF; Mr Anthony Ferguson, President, Caribbean Taekwondo Federation) to a meeting of the CGF Sport Committee in London, on Monday 7th June.
As part of the application, Dr Darlington (left) produced and delivered the main part of the WTF presentation, which had the CGF panel entertained as well as informed.

All the team members contributed. Mr Dildar, for example, effectively addressed CGF concerns about gender equality by pointing out that taekwondo is the only sport where Iran sends a full female team!
 

As a result, on 14th June, the WTF received word from Mr Mike Hooper, Chief Executive Officer of the CGF, that taekwondo is now a Category 2 Commonwealth Games sport!

At the moment, only kyorugi has been accepted but the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships, the World University Summer Games and the World University Taekwondo Championships all feature poomsae so the next step is to campaign for poomsae too.

Category 1 (compulsory) sports (Athletics, Swimming, Badminton, Boxing, Field Hockey, Lawn Bowls, Netball, Squash, Rugby Sevens and Weightlifting) are included in all Games.
Taekwondo skipped Category 3 (developing sport) and jumped straight to Category 2 (optional sports) to join Archery, Basketball, Cycling, Diving, Gymnastics, Judo, Shooting, Table Tennis, Tennis, Triathlon and Wrestling. Host cities can choose up to seven Category 2 sports for any Games.

The events for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow have already been decided, but in Glasgow, we will be in an ideal position to lobby the next host city. The two bidding cities for 2018 are Gold Coast (Australia) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka) and taekwondo is popular in both countries…!

(Dr Darlington’s PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded here.)
(Photographs courtesy of Mr Dariush Rouzbahani of the London Taekwondo Academy.)

22^nd December 2009

Arrive

The first thing which is clear, NO WAR!! But as yet the economy is not good.  Indi and Shelton pick me up but no Rath which is very strange indeed as he has always been here.  At this present time he is on his officer course (Sri-Lankan Army)

Just as always, I feel I have come home.  I always feel apprehensive, as the weeks slowly approach to coming here.   I am scared that I may have lost my passion for Lanka as it has been a whole year since I was here last.  I should not have worried.  It is exactly the same feeling and the same passion that I have for this place like all those years before.

I love this place; even the car ride seemed less traumatic than normal.  Reaching Lala‘s was just great for me.  Small changes, but nothing to destroy its natural beauty,  infact  many things to enhance its natural beauty. 

After settling in, sorting phones, I was ready for my one and only chill and sleep on the beach time.  No sleep for over 15 hours even gets to me!!

Over 40 applicants for the Fighting Chance Talent Campaign, which is offering high level combat athletes from all kicking orientated martial arts, including taekwondo, the opportunity to trial for a place in the elite taekwondo academy, have undergone phase two of the initiative as the quest to find an athlete capable of winning Olympic Gold in 2012 continued in Manchester.

The initiative, launched last October by Sport Taekwondo UK and the UK Talent Team - a collaboration between UK Sport and English Institute of Sport [EIS] – is endeavouring to mould an Olympic medallist by scouring the cream of British martial arts talent, with those present having already made it through a rigorous application and phase one assessment process.

With over 1000 initial applications, the selection process has inevitably involved some tough decisions as Paul Mullan, Senior Talent Identification Scientist for the UK Talent Team, explained: “What started off as a large scale appeal for talent within martial arts has developed into a very selective process and the fact that we have World and European medallists from other martial arts disciplines amongst the applicants gives you some indication as to the quality of athletes we’re talking about” he told eis2win.co.uk

The European Senior Taekwondo Championships 2010 in Leningrad will be utilizing the Electronic Body Protector from Daedo company. This device has been licensed by WTF a short time ago and ETU has signed a contract with Daedo regarding its use in official ETU tournaments in the next years.

The use of the Daedo EBP requires every competitor to wear a special foot protector which enables automatic electronic scoring. This foot protector has to be bought by the competitor himself and will not be provided for free by the organizer. Therefore all federations participating at the Senior Taekwondo Championships 2010 are required to order the appropriate number of foot protectors for their team before April 26th 2010 directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . If they do so, they will receive a special price (€ 26.-).

Anyone who misses the deadline for preordering can buy the foot protector in the hall for normal price later. Daedo has informed ETU that due to high duties in Russia, the end price for customers who did not preorder (and prepay) the foot protectors will be € 45.- in the hall.

Taken from ETU website. 

Tickets for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games will go on sale in 2011.   

Registering is quick and easy, and will only take a few minutes to complete and will save you time when tickets go on sale in 2011.

Taken from BTCB website.