It may come as a surprise but a Paralympic version of Taekwondo does exist. Para-Taekwondo was invented a few years ago, it had it's first World Championships in 2009 in Azerbaijan. Great Britain already has a world medallist thanks to Amy Truesdale, a 21-year-old from Chester, who in 2009 went to the sport's Championships to claim a bronze medal.
The inaugural World Para-Taekwondo event in 2009 was the first time that Amy, who was born with the lower part of her left arm missing, had completed against other Para-Taekwondo athletes; she usually applies her trade with able-bodied athletes at other events and does exceptionally well. Most recently Amy challenging the rest of the country in the women’s under 63kg category at the sport’s national championships in Manchester where she won the bronze medal.
Para-Taekwondo is open to athletes, like Amy, who have part of their arm missing either above or below their elbow on one or both of their arms. Because of this, the rules of the Olympic version have been adjusted so an attack on the head is prohibited in Para-Taekwondo. This is something that comes slightly unnaturally to most Taekwondo players and make Para-Taekwodo technically more challenging as it only provides the chest as a scoring area.
Unfortunately whilst Para-Taekwondo will not feature at the London Paralympics (it hasn't been around long enough for enough people around the world to compete in it), I hope that the number of nations competing will increase over the coming years so that it can be considered for inclusion on the Rio 2016 programm. The signs are good: 16 nations competed at the 2009 Championships and 21 are expected this week when the 2nd World Para-Taekwondo Championships take place in Russia.
As the London 2012 Games are about challenging ourselves, challenging each other and challenging our perceptions as to what is possible, I do hope that Para-Taekwondo continues to grow as a sport, and becomes better established and more well-known in the UK. Above all I do hope to see Amy challenging for a place to compete (in the Olympics) in London.
So my answer to the original question, 'will it be in the Paralympics?' my answer is, 'not yet... but hopefully soon!'
The second WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships starts today in St Petersburg, Russia. Watch the action live at: www.dartfish.tv/WTF
