Taekwondo – Are YOU Any Good?

Britain has a good pedigree in Taekwondo, with Sarah Stevenson winning a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and 17 year old Aaron Cook narrowly missing out on a medal in a fight that featured prominently by the BBC and talked about extensively on the basis of Aaron having been attracted into the sport through his love of the Power Rangers.
However, Cook could easily have missed out on his Olympic dreams, and has a burning desire to win gold in 2012. “It was never clear to me which code I was doing,” he said. “ITF taekwondo seemed to be more prominent in my area growing up and that is the martial art I started in. I transferred across to WTF taekwondo and realized my Olympic dream, well almost, gold in London is the aim.

“I believe there is a lot of talent out there, particularly in ITF which could make the transfer with the right guidance and development opportunity, particularly in women as they have some World Champions and I’d encourage all of them to apply via www.uksport.gov.uk/talent.”

Cook’s transfer from ITF took a full year to regrade to black belt in WTF, but the Talent2012 Fighting Chance programme will accelerate the learning and transition for those finally selected from different backgrounds.

WTF Taekwondo Performance Director Gary Hall commented: “This is a one-off chance for combat athletes to achieve success when the Olympic Games comes to London in 2012. It’s an exciting opportunity and something that we had been developing for some time.

“Getting investment from the UK Talent Team and the British Taekwondo Control Board (BTCB) has enabled us to go ahead. The Talent2012 Fighting Chance programme complements the current talent development programme, which we have in place and was recently reviewed and communicated to the BTCB membership. This will see additional investment into the junior and cadet programmes to ensure continuity through to the 2016 Olympics and beyond. Talent2012 Fighting Chance is a high-profile campaign and should raise the awareness of the sport and its athletes as a whole. We are determined that this process will help develop the sport, unearth some world class talent and increase competition for places at the top level.”

“We have considerable case study evidence to demonstrate that this is the right approach to take, and we know there is no shortage of talented athletes out there who are capable of achieving international success at the highest level.”

“This process aims to identify those athletes with the talent to win medals at the highest level and desire to commit themselves to an intensive block of training and fighting up to 2012. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance and we are really looking forward to meeting athletes face to face in February at the assessment days.”

The Talent2012 Fighting Chance initiative forms part of UK Sports overall talent development strategy that crosses several sports.

UK Sport’s Head of Athlete Development, Chelsea Warr, said: “This is a really exciting opportunity to attract new athletes to the world class pathway. UK Sport is committed to achieving top four in the Olympic medal table in 2012, and we are supporting the delivery of this initiative because we have seen the evidence and are convinced that we can fill current talent gaps within the sport, and create genuine medal opportunities in London.
“We urge athletes who think they’ve got what it takes to apply. Spending five minutes filling out a form online could be completely life changing – we’ve seen it happen in previous talent recruitment initiatives that we have run with other sports.”

The application process is open now at www.uksport.gov.uk/talent and will remain open until November 30th 2009. Applicants will be assessed during December and the best candidates will be invited to one of the assessment days due to take place in February. Invitations will be sent out in January. Those athletes successfully selected from phase two will be expected to attend a Boot Camp at the National Taekwondo Performance Centre in Manchester during May and a second boot camp is schedule in Korea for those finely selected to join the programme full time.