Today was a historic day for the world of Taekwondo. The two major governing bodies – the South Korean Olympic World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) and the North Korean International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) had an official meeting in Viena. The meeting marked the 25th anniversary of taekwondo’s inclusion in the Olympic programme since 103rd IOC Congress in Paris voted to include taekwondo in 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and was held under the theme of ‘One World, One Taekwondo. This was the first meeting between the two organizations since 1985 and the venue wasn’t chosen accidentally – ITF’s headquarters are in Vienna.
Among those presents were WTF’s President – Dr. Chungwon Choue, ITF’s President Prof. Ri Yong Son, Austria Taekwondo Federation’s President, Wales Taekwondo Federation’s President, as well as the European Taekwondo Union’s President – Slavi Binev.
There were numerous and various demonstrations during the meeting. Binev took part in some of them, as he demonstrated that the panels that can’t be broken by foot, can be demolished by a head. The demonstrations and the meetings between WTF and ITF will continue next week in the Olympic capital of Lausanne, Geneva.
