After participating as a demonstration sport in Seoul 88 and Barcelona 1992, and becoming an official sport in Sydney 2000 until Tokyo, this sport has undergone modifications to achieve its permanence in the Olympic program.
Sakis Pragalos, president of the European Taekwondo Union gave a positive balance to the recently concluded Olympic Games in Tokyo.
We asked how he observed the development of the Games.
What is your opinion of Taekwondo in Tokyo 2020?
– Great fights, unexpected winners and a lot of emotion! Second, it is
not only one country winning all medals like back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Nowadays,
every country has a fair chance of winning an Olympic medal!
– Third, age does not matter in Taekwondo! We saw the Spanish youngster – at the beginning of her global career –
Adriana Cerezo Iglesias winning the Olympic silver medal. But also, in 2012, Carlo
Molfetta at the end of his career won the Olympic gold medal. In our sport everything is
possible.
What do you think is the reason that Taekwondo has such a strong presence in the
Olympic program?.
There are a few things that are important. First, our sport is exciting! The rules that
under the leadership of Dr. Choue as president of WT are implemented make
Taekwondo competition very exciting. I think watching the Olympics this year was
absolutely amazing.
