Qualifying Tournament - 2008 Olympic Games

The British Taekwondo Control Board has been awarded the right to hold the World Taekwondo Qualification Tournament for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.  The Tournament will take place in Manchester in 2007.
  The announcement came at the Executive Committee Meeting of the World Taekwondo Federation at Junior World Championships in Vietnam on Monday 24th July.   The final two cities to bid were Baku in Azerbaijan and Manchester. Bangkok and Istanbul withdrew their bids earlier in the process. Baku was the host city for the European Taekwondo Qualification Tournament for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.   The BTCB gave a strong presentation on why Manchester should be awarded the event highlighting strong support from the British Olympic Association President Princess Anne, the Government Minister for Sport Richard Carbon and UK Sport Chair Sue Campbell. After the secret-vote is was announced that Manchester was the successful city.  The BTCB won with majority decision of 24 votes to 11.   Adrian Tranter, Chair of the BTCB, expressed his excitement at winning the event saying, ‘this is excellent news for the sport of Taekwondo in the UK, we will provide a wonderful competition for athletes and an exciting event for spectators, it will also give our athletes a wonderful home advantage to qualify for Beijing. We would like to thank UK Sport’s World Class Events Programme, Manchester City Council and the Northwest Regional Development Agency for their support in preparing the bid and going that extra mile.’   Gary Hall, Performance Director of the BTCB said ‘many thanks have to go the British Olympic Association, Sir Simon Clegg’s support played an influential part in winning the bid.  The bid team of BTCB President Dr Park Soo-Nam, Vice-President Dr. Lim-Kwan-In, Chairman Adrian Tranter and Bid Manager Andrew Link worked tirelessly to secure this prestigious event, the first of its kind and size to be held in Great Britain.’
 
Andrew Link, Bid Manager outlined the bidding strategy, ‘we set out our bid with three guiding principles, these were: 1. The athlete performance and experience, 2. The delivery of a world class event and 3. To ensure the continuation of Taekwondo as an Olympic discipline. The WTF were impressed with our offer and the event will meet at the criteria we set ourselves.  It is about time we brought a major Taekwondo event like this to Great Britain, the British fans and players always heavily support the European Taekwondo Circuit and it is the right time to bring the worlds best players to the world’s best Taekwondo supporters’.

UK Sport’s International Director, John Scott said:

“We are delighted to hear that the UK will be hosting the World Taekwondo Qualification Tournament next year. Outwith the Olympic Games and the World Championships this event is the most important in the Taekwondo calendar. Furthermore, 24 of the 64 qualifications places for Beijing 2008 will be up for grabs, which makes the awarding of this event to the UK even more important for our elite athletes and their Olympic Games preparation. UK Sport’s World Class Event Programme, in conjunction with other partners, supported this bid and we look forward to working together to put on a spectacular event next year.”

The next stage will be a period of consultation, planning and preparation before we announce further details of this world-class tournament.

Further information:

Taekwondo was adopted as a demonstration sport at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games and made its debut as an Olympic sport at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Since then, it has been an official sport at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, it will be a Summer sport in the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games

This event allows all worldwide member nations to submit 2 male athletes and 2 female athletes to participate. Each member nation must decide which of the 4 male categories and 4 female categories they wish to compete in.  The 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place athletes, in each weight class, qualify to participate in the Games. However, each member nation has the right to substitute athletes as long as the substitute player competes in the same qualified weight class.

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