52 Fun Facts About Taekwondo

Which heavyweight boxing champion credited a taekwondo master's 'Accupunch' for his final knockout win?

Muhammad Ali: he learned the fast, no-warning punch from the master in the mid-1970s and used it to stop Britain's Richard Dunn in 1976.

What do taekwondo students traditionally wear on their feet in class?

Nothing: students train barefoot, but Olympic fighters pull on thin socks fitted with sensors so the electronic scoring system can register their kicks.

What is the taekwondo uniform called?

The name simply means 'way clothing'; the wide sleeves and trousers set it apart from the Japanese keikogi it descends from.

What is a taekwondo training hall called?

Dojang: the Korean counterpart of the Japanese dojo, it is where students traditionally bow to show mutual respect.

What is the taekwondo term for board-breaking?

Demonstrations extend the idea to bricks, tiles and blocks of ice, and competitions split it into power, speed and special-technique breaks.

Which country's taekwondo fighter was banned for life after kicking a referee in the face at Beijing 2008?

Cuba's Ángel Matos, disqualified for overrunning his injury time in a bronze-medal bout, kicked the Swedish referee and was banned for life along with his coach.

Cheick Sallah Cissé won Rio 2016 taekwondo gold with a head kick in the final second for which country?

Ivory Coast's Cissé trailed Britain's Lutalo Muhammad until his last-second head kick won the final 8–6.

What were the 1940s Korean martial arts schools that gave rise to taekwondo called?

Kwans opened in Seoul and Kaesong in the 1940s, and their leaders spent years merging them into one Korean art under the Korea Taekwondo Association.

Which South Korean president urged the army to adopt one martial art after a 1950s military demonstration?

Syngman Rhee watched an officer smash 13 roof tiles with a punch and was so impressed that he ordered martial arts training for all military personnel.

Left off Britain's 2012 Olympic team, taekwondo star Aaron Cook fought at Rio 2016 for which country bordering Romania?

Moldova took him on after he broke with GB Taekwondo, but he lost 14–2 in his first bout in Rio.

Jailed for plotting against the Japanese army, future taekwondo pioneer Choi Hong-hi was freed by what?

Korea's liberation at the end of the Second World War set him free, and he rose quickly through South Korea's new army to become a general.

At Beijing 2008, why was Sarah Stevenson's quarterfinal loss to the defending champion overturned?

A missed scoring kick was the reason: judges failed to register her head kick in the final seconds, but a protest reversed the result and Stevenson went on to win bronze.

Where did the ITF's founder die of stomach cancer in 2002?

Pyongyang is where he died, after visits in the 1980s in which he brought ITF taekwondo to North Korea.

What happened to South Korea's Olympic taekwondo team for the first time in 2021?

It won no gold medals: the country that invented the sport left the Games with a silver and two bronzes, while seven other nations shared the eight titles.

Why did the WTF drop the F from its initials in 2017?

Its acronym had become internet slang, but World Taekwondo's new logo kept the kicking athlete that had formed the T in WTF.

Which actor plays a small-town taekwondo instructor in the low-budget comedy The Foot Fist Way?

Danny McBride: the film premiered at Sundance in 2006 and reached cinemas two years later, after fans Will Ferrell and Adam McKay championed it.

Taekwondo performers from North and South Korea shared a stage just before which Olympics' opening ceremony?

PyeongChang 2018: the performers came from the sport's two rival world bodies, and later that night athletes from both countries marched in together behind a single flag.

Who was the first president of the World Taekwondo Federation?

Kim Un-yong, later an IOC vice-president, was jailed in 2004 for embezzlement and bribery, though the judge cited his worldwide promotion of taekwondo in easing the sentence.

Besides Seoul 1988, at which Olympics was taekwondo a demonstration sport?

Barcelona 1992 kept taekwondo as a demonstration sport, and in 1994 the IOC voted it onto the medal programme for Sydney 2000.

At Rio 2016, Olympic taekwondo swapped its square mat for which shape?

Octagon: the sport's world body wanted livelier, more continuous fights for TV audiences, and at the same Games let fighters walk out to music of their choice.

How does an Olympic taekwondo coach ask for a video replay?

By holding up a card: a coach normally gets just one per match and keeps it only if the challenge succeeds, so a failed review leaves them with no more replays.

Which football striker, famed for acrobatic goals, holds an honorary taekwondo black belt?

Zlatan Ibrahimović: he took taekwondo classes as a boy in Malmö, and that training is widely credited for his overhead kicks and mid-air volleys.

What is the chest protector worn in WT sparring called?

Hogu at World Taekwondo events are electronic, registering the force and location of kicks, so a kick below the set impact level scores nothing.

Which future UFC champion, a taekwondo black belt, landed the off-the-cage 'Showtime kick' in 2010?

Anthony Pettis: late in the final round he ran up the cage wall, pushed off and kicked Benson Henderson to the mat, winning the last WEC title fight.

What is a penalty called in WT taekwondo sparring?

Gam-jeom each add a point to the opponent's score, and under the rules World Taekwondo used from 2017, a fighter who collected ten lost the bout.

Which strike is banned in Olympic (WT) taekwondo but allowed under ITF rules?

Punches to the head hand the opponent a point as a penalty in World Taekwondo sparring, while ITF rules allow them.

What are the formal patterns of taekwondo called in the Kukkiwon/WT style?

Poomsae are tested at belt gradings, and moving up from one dan rank to the next means learning new ones.

On which TV talent show did World Taekwondo's demonstration team win a Golden Buzzer in 2021?

America's Got Talent: host Terry Crews hit the Golden Buzzer after their board-smashing audition, sending the team straight through to the live shows.

Kukkiwon taekwondo's eight taegeuk forms each link to a trigram from which classic text?

The I Ching trigrams each give one form its theme, and students learn all eight taegeuk forms on the way to black belt before starting Koryo.

What are junior, coloured-belt ranks called in taekwondo?

Geup ranks count down towards black belt, after which dan ranks count upwards, and under-15s who pass the black-belt test hold a poom grade instead.

Which phrase is one of the five tenets of taekwondo set out by the ITF's founder?

Indomitable spirit joins courtesy, integrity, perseverance and self-control, and many classes recite the tenets aloud at the start of each session.

Taekwondo's philosophy often refers back to the code of which elite youth warriors of ancient Silla?

The Hwarang followed five precepts set down by the Buddhist monk Won'gwang, including never retreating in battle.

According to Choi's Theory of Power, which factor matters most for the energy of a strike?

Speed wins because kinetic energy grows with the square of speed but only in step with mass, so Choi taught that a fast strike outdoes a heavy one.

In 2013, taekwondo survived an Olympic board vote that dropped which sport instead?

Wrestling: taekwondo was among the last sports at risk in the secret ballot, but wrestling went instead, only to win its place back seven months later.

Which Korean-American teacher is known as the 'father of taekwondo in the United States'?

He built a chain of schools around Washington, D.C. from 1962; his students starred in the bare-knuckle 'Blood and Guts' karate circuits.

Which US chain, founded in Omaha in 1969, teaches its own Songahm style?

The ATA's founder had first taught taekwondo to Korean army members, and in 1977 the association moved its headquarters from Omaha to Little Rock, Arkansas.

At Osan Air Base, where he got the nickname 'Chuck', Carlos Norris earned a black belt in which Korean art?

Tang Soo Do set him on the way to martial arts titles, and Bruce Lee later cast him as the villain in the 1972 film The Way of the Dragon.

Which American won taekwondo gold at both the 2000 and 2004 Olympics?

Steven López took the first gold at 68 kg, then moved up to the 80 kg class to win again in Athens.

Which Iranian fighter won Olympic taekwondo gold in both 2004 and 2008?

Hadi Saei had earlier auctioned his medals, including his Sydney 2000 bronze, to raise money for victims of the 2003 Bam earthquake.

How did Afghanistan's president reward Rohullah Nikpai for the country's first Olympic medal, a 2008 taekwondo bronze?

With a house: a car came with it, and thousands of people turned out in Kabul to cheer him home.

Which Welsh fighter won Great Britain's first Olympic taekwondo gold in 2012 and defended it in 2016?

Jade Jones took up taekwondo at eight, and after two decades in the sport she switched to boxing, winning her 2026 debut by knockout.

Anthony Obame's 2012 taekwondo silver was the first Olympic medal ever for which nation?

Gabon's Anthony Obame and Italy's Carlo Molfetta were still tied after overtime in the final, and Molfetta took gold on a judges' decision.

Which taekwondo fighter was Tonga's oiled, shirtless flag-bearer at Rio 2016's opening?

Pita Taufatofua then qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympics as a cross-country skier, through a last-chance race in Iceland.

Ahmad Abughaush's 2016 taekwondo gold was the first Olympic medal in any sport for which country?

Jordan's Ahmad Abughaush beat South Korea's Lee Dae-hoon and defending champion Joel González, then Russia's Alexey Denisenko 10–6 in the final.

Whom did Kimia Alizadeh, the first Iranian woman to win a Summer Games medal, represent at the Tokyo Olympics?

The Refugee Team took her in after she left Iran in January 2020, calling herself 'one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran'.

Servet Tazegül beat Iran's Mohammad Bagheri Motamed for 68 kg Olympic gold at London 2012 representing which country?

Turkey's Servet Tazegül won the final 6–5, and a 7,500-seat arena in Mersin was named after him for the 2013 Mediterranean Games.

Chen Shih-hsin quit taekwondo to sell betel nuts, then in 2004 won one of which team's first Olympic golds?

Taiwan: competing as Chinese Taipei, she had come back to the sport after making peace with her father, her first coach, and a teammate also won gold the same night.

What is the belt of a taekwondo uniform called?

A new tti colour has to be earned at a grading, which for coloured belts is usually held at the student's own club.

In Paralympic taekwondo sparring, which strikes are banned outright?

Kicks to the head are off limits and punches score nothing, so para fighters earn extra points with turning and spinning kicks to the trunk.

At which Games did taekwondo make its Paralympic debut?

Tokyo 2020 came after a failed bid: para taekwondo applied for Rio 2016 but lost out, then won approval for Tokyo in January 2015.

Where did ITF founder Choi Hong-hi go into exile in 1972?

Canada became his base, and South Korea answered by founding the rival World Taekwondo Federation in 1973, splitting the sport in two.

What does the 'revisionist' view of taekwondo's origins argue?

That it is rooted in karate: Choi Hong-hi, who submitted the name taekwondo in 1955, had studied karate in Japan.