(Taekwondo)

Taekwondo or Tae Kwon Do (Korean: Taegwondo) is the Korean national sport martial art, and is also one of the world's most commonly practiced sports. In the Korean language, Tae means "kick or destroy with the foot", Kwon means "punch or smash with the hand or fist", and Do means "way or art". Hence, Taekwondo is taken to mean "the way of the foot and the fist."

Taekwondo is popular throughout the world, and the World Taekwondo Federation's form of Taekwondo is an Olympic sport since the year 2000.

While some forms of Taekwondo have received criticism for not teaching enough street-effective techniques, this has more to do with commercialization, rather than with any inherent flaw in the art itself: one of the reasons Taekwondo is so popular is because of its effectiveness as a form of self-defence.

At the Olympic Games competitions are held in the following disciplines:

. + 67 kg Women

. + 80 kg Men

. - 49 kg Women

. - 58 kg Men

. 49 - 57 kg Women

. 57 - 67 kg Women

. 58 - 68 kg Men

. 68 - 80 kg Men