TODAY'S TAE KWON DO

Upon liberation of Korea from the Japanese colonial rule after World War II, the Korean people began recovering the thought of self-reliance and the traditional folkloric games resumed their popularity. Song Duk-Ki, afore-mentioned master of teakkyondo, presented a demonstration of the martial art before the first Republic of Korea President Syngman Rhee on the occasion of the latter's birth-day anniversary, thus clearly distinguishing Taekwondo from the Japanese Karate which had been introduced by the Japanese rulers.

Martial art experts began opening their Taekwondo gymnasiums all over the country and after the end of Korean War (1950~1953) Taekwondo was popularized among the Dan-grade black-belts within the country, also dispatching about 2,000 Taekwondo masters to more than 100 countries for foreigners' training.

After all, following the nomination of Taekwondo as a national martial art in 1971, the present Kukkiwon was founded in 1972 to be used as the central gymnasium as well as the site of various Taekwondo competitions. The a year later on May 28, 1973 the World Taekwondo Federation came into existence, currently having 108 countries as its members.

In 1973 the biennial World Taekwondo Championships was organized, the final results of which up to 1985 are shown Table 1.

Again in 1974, Taekwondo was admitted to the Asian Games as an official event. The results of Asia Taekwondo Championships are shown in Table 2.

In 1975 Taekwondo was accepted as an official sport by the U.S. Amateur Athletes Union (AAU) and also admitted to the General Association of international Sports Federations (GAISF), followed by the adoption of official sports event by the International Council of Military Sports (CISM) in 1976. In 1979 President of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) was elected chairman of the World Federation of Non-Olympic Sports. The WTF became an IOC-recognized sports federation in 1980, making Taekwondo an Olympic sport. Then the adoption of Taekwondo as an official event was followed by the World Games in 1981, the Pan-American Games in 1986, and finally by the 2000 Olympiad to be held in Australia.