The sport of Taekwondo at the Olympic Games has four weight divisions.
2012 Summer Olympic Taekwondo Events Key facts
Venue: ExCeL
Dates: Wednesday 8 August – Saturday 11 August
Gold medals: 8
Athletes: 128
Taekwondo: A history of the sport
The modern form of Taekwondo wasn’t agreed until 1955, but the sport has its roots in various Korean forms of martial arts stretching back more than 2,000 years.
‘Taekwondo’ translates into English as “the art of the foot and the fist” – an accurate description of the way it is played. Powerful kicks and punches are literally the name of the game.
Taekwondo at the Games
For a young sport, Taekwondo was quick to make its Games debut. It featured as a demonstration event in Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992 before becoming a full medal sport at the Sydney 2000 Games.
Taekwondo is popular worldwide, with many nations competing for the top place alongside the likes of Korea, China, USA and Iran. It is truly a world sport.
How to play – and win
The aim is to land accurate kicks on the scoring area of your opponent.
The action takes place inside a 10 square metre-zone on a mat, in three rounds of two minutes each, if the match has not been decided after this match time the game has a further exciting sudden death round.
At the Olympic Games, events are held in four weight classes for both men and women. Competitors wear a white uniform called a ‘Dobok’, and protective equipment. One competitor wears red protection, the other blue, to help the judges tell the difference.
Jargon buster
* Deuk-jeom: A point.
* Gam-jeom: A one-point penalty.
* Chung: The contestant wearing blue.
* Hong: The contestant wearing red.
* Taekwonda: A Taekwondo athlete.
1 responses to 2012 Summer Olympic Taekwondo Events
Tae Kwon Do Association of Great Britain NOT Part of London Olympics
Taekwondo is has been an olympics sport for a number of year so why then does politics have to ruin the chances of the GB team for 2012 as only 30/40% of Taekwondo are eligble to fight in 2012?
i was a member of the Tae Kwon Do Association of Great Britain (TAGB) for a number of year and they successfully when to Korea and won so why must organisation like the TAGB be ruled out as they could adapt to the fight regs so easily and surley it should be whats best for TEAM GB and politics should take a back seat
Tae Kwon Do Association of Great Britain NOT Part of London Olympics open for disscussion mr Hugh Robertson or anyone else
2012 Summer Olympic Taekwondo Events
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