World Beach Taekwondo Championships

Metal

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I was busy all Summer and didn't really follow any Taekwondo, besides the Olympics and had wondered what had happened to the WTF's World Beach Taekwondo Championships. Fortunately this got canceled, but I guess they'll try to come up with an event like that again in 2017...

The 1st WTF World Taekwondo Beach Championships Cancelled - World Taekwondo Federation

UNIFORM

Male Athletes
Top: Sleeveless, Bottom: Shorts

Female Athletes
Top: Tank Top or Sleeveless Bottom: Shorts

* Wearing long sleeves, tights and a hijab for religious reasons is allowed.
** Wearing sport sunglasses is allowed.

http://www.worldtaekwondofederation...ld-Taekwondo-Beach-Championships_20160315.pdf


I was fine with the new Poomsae uniforms they introduced a few years ago. I was skeptical regarding the introduction of colored pants at the Rio 2016 games and have to say that many of those colored pants looked terrible and didn't match the colors of the body and head protectors at all. I was happy to see that most nations didn't care about introducing colored pants though.

Now the World Taekwondo Federation comes up with this?

First they're pushing the date back because of Ramadan on the one hand, but then they're having athletes compete wearing short sleeved shirts/tank tops and shorts in a muslim country on the other?

Indonesia, and especially Bali isn't that strict when it comes to the Muslim dress code and it's okay for tourists to wear shorts. Yet I wonder what they were thinking.

Does the WTF want to compete with Beach Volleyball?


What's your thought on this?
 

TrueJim

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The concept of a tournament on the beach doesn't bother me. Likewise the concept of a tournament in a nice grassy park doesn't bother me either. The idea of holding a tournament outside doesn't bother me.

Likewise, if you're going to hold a tournament outside, some concessions to the climate don't bother me. If you're going to hold a tournament outside on a hot day, making the uniform be tee-shirts and shorts doesn't bother me. Or for instance if the tournament was held in a grassy park, requiring taekwondo shoes as part of the uniform could make sense (if the ground wasn't well-prepare). As long as the uniforms aren't intended to exploit the athletes (like some may argue that women's beach volleyball does), uniforms tailored to the climate don't bother me.

All of that having been said, this particular tournament clearly wasn't well thought-out. Now that the idea has been suggested though, it wouldn't surprise me terribly to see somebody start sponsoring beach tournaments in LA, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were a big success. I think it'd be interesting.
 

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