The World Taekwondo Council today awarded the city of Baku, Azerbaijan the 2023 World Taekwondo Championships during an Extraordinary meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne.
Baku presented its bid to the Council during the meeting alongside Wuxi, China. The World Championships will be particularly special as they will fall on the 50th anniversary of World Taekwondo. The exact dates will be confirmed in due course.
IOC President Thomas Bach attended the meeting and heard a number of key reports from the Council. World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue provided an update on the great success of the recent Goyang 2022 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships which saw more than 1,000 athletes from 63 countries, aged between 12 to 71 years old take part.
A report on Taekwondo’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and in particular its support of refugees and displaced persons was also presented.
Special mention was made to the first ever Hope and Dreams Taekwondo Championships which was hosted by the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation (THF) on 19 March for more than 200 refugees in Jordan.
IOC President Bach presented President Choue with the IOC President’s Trophy – Olympic House before leaving the meeting. IOC Vice President Ser Miang Ng also briefly joined the meeting and addressed the members.
During the meeting, the members also approved the motion to move the host city of the 2022 World Taekwondo Championships from Cancun to Guadalajara due to political and financial difficulties.
After the meeting, the Council were taken on a tour of Olympic House and had a lunch hosted by President Bach.
The next World Taekwondo Council meeting will take place on August 1st followed by the General Assembly on the occasion of the World Taekwondo Cadet and Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Source and image: www.worldtaekwondo.org
