Athens olympic taekwondo?

[Englon]

I didn't get to see it. What countries took home what?

 

Thanks

[tufrthanu]

Men and womens fly weight went to chinese taipei aka taiwan

 

mens featherweight went to Iran womens featherweight went to Korea

 

mens welterweight went to the us and womens to china

 

womesn heavyweight went to china and mens to korea

[sickwithit13]

Steven Lopez beat the guy from turkey in the finals

[Sphintai]

That would have been awesome to see. Steven Lopez is a great martial artist.

[returning_wave]

I know im gonna get shouted at frot this but please udnerstand it is no my intention to troll.

 

but what the hell was going on in Athens?? It was the first time Ive ever really seen TKD in action, and my god it was poor! Is that really how TKD is taught and practised? I always considered it to be a reasonably highly ranked art in terms of beign a decent martial art but the olympic fighters were appalling! They were bouncing for apparently no reason at all on the spot with their hands limp by their sides, and teh only moves they seemed to know were inapplicable kicks to the head which gave their opponent ample (although ignored) oportunity to flip them on their head. so i guess Im basically asking is that how everyone practises TKD or is it a sport-afied version for the olympics?

[Sphintai]

Consider that a kick to the head in olympic sparring is two points, compared to the body hit, one. You cannot punch to the head in olypic style either. Learn the rules to the olympic games, and then you'll see that they're not as bad as you may see them to be.

[Englon]

I know im gonna get shouted at frot this but please udnerstand it is no my intention to troll.

 

but what the hell was going on in Athens?? It was the first time Ive ever really seen TKD in action, and my god it was poor! Is that really how TKD is taught and practised? I always considered it to be a reasonably highly ranked art in terms of beign a decent martial art but the olympic fighters were appalling! They were bouncing for apparently no reason at all on the spot with their hands limp by their sides, and teh only moves they seemed to know were inapplicable kicks to the head which gave their opponent ample (although ignored) oportunity to flip them on their head. so i guess Im basically asking is that how everyone practises TKD or is it a sport-afied version for the olympics?

 

I understand what you are saying. I think the fact that you can't punch to the head allows people to keep their hands low. Unfortunatly, it doesn't look good and isn't very practical for street fighting. The better schools teach to cross over. I took boxing before taekwondo and learned to keep my hands high and to throw combinations. I hope that TKD becomes a bigger part in the olympics. Here in the NW, it was only on at 2AM and never talked about on the news.

[rmclain]

After watching Olympic Taekwondo, I understand why it gets bad-mouthed in the martial arts community and why many in the public think it is for kids.

 

Very sad it has degraded to this.

 

R. McLain

[returning_wave]

Consider that a kick to the head in olympic sparring is two points, compared to the body hit, one. You cannot punch to the head in olypic style either. Learn the rules to the olympic games, and then you'll see that they're not as bad as you may see them to be.

 

the rules are part of my problem really. the rules of the art encourage poor fighting, (as they do in sport karate tournaments, tyo be fair, but not quite to that extent) but anyway with their hands down by their sides either one could have got about a million body hits in so easily compensated for the head kicks.

[DLopez]

the rules of the art encourage poor fighting, (as they do in sport karate tournaments, tyo be fair, but not quite to that extent) but anyway with their hands down by their sides either one could have got about a million body hits in so easily compensated for the head kicks.

 

Could be, but I would bet that the TKD fighters have already tried that and found through the natural evolution of the matches that kicks gets the results they want, namely more points in a shorter amount of time?

 

Whether that's "poor fighting" is a subjective opinion. If it acheives the objective better (winning matches), how can it legitimately be considered "poor" compared with other methods like body punches?