Taekwondo, the Korean martial artwork that incorporates a dazzling array of spinning and chopping kicks, made its Paralympic debut in Japan. The Video games ended on Sunday, with 68 athletes from 35 nations competing in taekwondo underneath the klieg lights at a big conference corridor simply outdoors Tokyo.
In lots of different sports activities, Paralympic athletes from wealthier nations are likely to have a bonus given how a lot their efficiency can depend upon expertise like personalized wheelchairs or prosthetic operating blades. However as within the Olympics, taekwondo has a democratizing impact as a result of it doesn't require costly gear or massive coaching services. Nations like Croatia and Egypt, which each gained comparatively few medals on the Video games general with seven apiece, had athletes on the rostrum in taekwondo. The one athlete to win a medal on the Tokyo Paralympics from Peru was Leonor Espinoza Carranza, who gained a gold medal within the girls’s under-49 kilogram occasion.
The matches, that are quick and explosive, happen on an octagonal platform, with the athletes carrying vests embedded with digital sensors that may observe the precision of the kicks that rating factors. This innovation, mentioned Chungwon Choue, the president of World Taekwondo, makes taekwondo one of many “most truthful and clear sports activities.”
“It reduces human error in judging,” mentioned Choue, who famous that the scoring course of was equitable in one other means: Referees are break up evenly between women and men.
Taekwondo attracted additional consideration because it made its debut as a result of one of many opponents, Zakia Khudadadi, 22, was an Afghan athlete who made a dramatic escape from Kabul to make it to Tokyo. Khudadadi misplaced her two matches.
In an effort to broaden the game, World Taekwondo has arrange a separate basis to introduce the martial artwork to refugee camps in Djibouti, Jordan, Rwanda and Turkey. A refugee from a camp in Rwanda, Parfait Hakizimana, initially from Burundi, competed on the Tokyo Video games.
As taekwondo made its Paralympic debut, it streamlined the classes wherein athletes compete, consolidating completely different impairment classifications. For some athletes competing towards rivals with lighter disabilities, the competitors was significantly fierce. “In fact it's a bit messy as a result of all of the courses have been mixed collectively,” Viktoriia Marchuk of Ukraine mentioned after profitable a match towards Khudadadi. “However nonetheless my dream has come true, and I'm very completely satisfied to face right here.”
