European Ranking for Cadets and Juniors

The Council and General Assembly unanimously approved the European Ranking Bylaw. As a consequence, the European Cadet and Junior athletes will be able to gain points at the Open International events (E-ranked events) as well as Presidents Cup (E2), European Club Championships (E1), Multi European Games (E1) but also European Cadet (E4) and Junior (E4) Championships and World Cadet (E12) and World Junior Championships (E12). The Bylaw approved yesterday has the same systematic as the WT Ranking bylaw for seniors.

 

 

Each month, new rankings will be published and those Open International events that have applied for Cadet and Junior Rankings will also use those rankings to have Cadet and Junior athletes seeded in the competitions. A full list of E-ranked events will be published shortly.

Education

The President explained during the meeting that Taekwondo Europe will work closely together with WT in the Coach educational program. Besides that, WTE will provide an educational program aiming at building an educational foundation able to elevate its participants’ sporting skills, create a strong network among the taekwondo family members and enhance educational and self-improvement initiatives within taekwondo, both as a sport and a way of living.

 

International Referees

President Pragalos mentioned in his welcome address: “Our international referee policy will be reviewed in 2020. All international referees in Europe will have a fair chance to officiate at our events, but only if they meet up with our quality expectations. Our athletes deserve the best referees when they compete. Therefore, we will explore possibilities to educate and select referees on the basis of specialization and those referees that do not yet meet the required standard will have the opportunity to be educated at our referee educational programs throughout the year. Only the best referees will be invited at our events”.

In addition, Taekwondo Europe will liaise with our Members to offer workshops for National Referees. Besides that, the training is meant to inspire them and give them further tools to develop themselves, to grow and to prepare them to be ready for future WTE and WT Referee courses before they become International Referees.

Events 2020 – 2024

The event calendar for 2020 and the G1 events in Europe is awaiting approval of World Taekwondo but will be published under a disclaimer shortly. All European Championships are already allocated to a host and the Council and General Assembly were informed that for the first time in the organization’s history European events will take place in Estonia and Bosnia & Hercegovina. Other hosts are Helsingborg (Sweden), Milan (Italy), Porec and Zagreb (Croatia), Sindelfingen (Germany), Bucharest (Romania), Ukraine and Sofia (Bulgaria).

Training camp for athletes

Taekwondo Europe will introduce training camps for athletes at different levels by inviting elite coaches and trainers with high expertise in the field of Olympic Taekwondo and Paralympic Taekwondo competition and poomsae. The aim is to offer our athletes various activities for to maintain the sustainability to help the kids to grow and implement principles and fundamentals of the Taekwondo values and Code of Ethics and spirit of the good sportsmanship. Also, topics like safeguarding and anti-doping will be highlighted during the camps.

 

Quota allocation system

One important issue discussed during the meetings was the revision of the quota allocation system. In short, the system of quota places is revised in such a way that one country cannot have more than 2 athletes of the same nationality at a European Championship. The athlete from the Member (national team athlete) automatically has access to the European Championships. In case there are 2 or more quota athletes of the same nationality, a fight off will be organized. The winner will then enter into the respective European Championship. For more information, please see the Quota Allocation System explained manual that will be published before 10 December 2019.

Cadet athlete safety

Both meetings were briefed by Mr. Ali Sagirkaya on a new concept in order to guarantee the safety of our youngsters. Rapid weight loss, with all dangers and risks, is a serious problem at the Cadet competitions. Scientific research has shown that our young athletes are at risk within our sport. During the presentation, Mr. Sagirkaya introduced the idea to replace the traditional weight categories by categories based on length/height of an athlete combined with a healthy Body Mass Index and a maximum weight. Several studies have shown that this concept would prevent the rapid weight loss problems that we are nowadays facing in our sport.

Generation 24

The General Assembly Council approved the Generation 24 policy Taekwondo will introduce in 2020. This policy aims at making sure our young and ambitious athletes will be ready to grab medals at the 2024 and 2028 Olympics. The Generation 24 policy includes the implementation of regional Kids and Cadets events. At these regional events, only Kids and Cadets of that specific region can participate. The medal winners at each Regional event win a quota for the Grand Finale event which will be held in Bosnia and Hercegovina at the end of October. More information on dates will be found on the Taekwondo Europe event calendar.

 

Para-Taekwondo

Mr. Evgeny Kluychnikov gave a presentation on Para Taekwondo. One of the points he mentioned was the awarding of government support to write the first ever Para Taekwondo manual for coaches in which a multiple number of topics would be covered. The edition will be published in 2020 in the English and Russian language.

Governance

Last but not least, the General Assembly exonerated the Council for the financial years 2017 and 2018. The President made some remarks during the meetings: “When I started as president, our budget was approximately 40.000 euro a year. Today, I am very proud that our budget has increased to almost 1 million euro. This increase however requires us built in checks and balances. We have our auditors but also our internal financial system has been under review by us in the past few months. We have centralized our finances and our Treasurer is working hard to introduce the double book keeping system in order to provide more transparent figures in the future”.

The General Assembly approved the amendments of the Statutes to be in full compliance with the WT Statutes. An important change entailed the universal application of the WT Disciplinary Actions and Appeals Code.

 

MasTKD Team by WTE.