Watch: Malta To Host European Taekwondo Children’s Championships For First Time In History
Come December, Malta will be turned into a ‘fight island’ for the very first time, with the newly-formed Malta Taekwondo Association (MTA) hosting the country’s first-ever European Taekwondo Championships, for children aged 12-14 years.
The event will welcome up to 500 European athletes, of whom will throw down for the top spot. Achieving such a position would class them as the best in the continent, and among the best in the world.
Taekwondo is an Olympic sport, with a member base of around 70 million people worldwide, with Europe being one of the strongest zones in the world for practitioners.
To learn more, Lovin Malta hosted Kenneth Schunken, Director General of World Taekwondo Europe (ETU) on Lovin Daily. Schunken visited Malta to plan the operation, last Saturday.
The Championships may field the youngest of the elite, but it is they who will carry their legacy forward to the Olympic level.
“That is why we had this age division compete in European Championships. These kids, at those ages, need such an international platform to compete. They are the ones that will win the medals at the Olympics, in the end.”
The national players attending the event would have already gone through an arduous qualification process by way of their National Opens – knockout tournaments yielding an undisputed winner in each weight class.
Why Malta?
There are three tiers of competition: Cadet (12-14 years), Junior (14-17 years), and Senior (over 18 years). Continental unions feature cadet and junior-level championships in countries where Taekwondo is still a growing sport, much like Malta.
“In Malta, we know that taekwondo is not as popular as other sports, so we use this opportunity to showcase the sport, all the while making sure that the association can grow.”
The Maltese Association is brand new, conceived as late as 2020 in the wake of the dissolution of the previous ‘Malta Taekwondo Federation’, which struggled with corruption and was deemed incurable by the global body: World Taekwondo.
Schunken was part of the Union-appointed investigation team sent to Malta to assess the ‘discordance’ in the former federation and was pleased to convey his happiness with how things are moving along now, with the MTA.
“The [association] has made some huge steps. Not only on paper but also in practice. We are very happy with these developments.”
Small countries: how can we up our game?
With Taekwondo in Malta being such a small sport, high-level athletes are forced to look to lands abroad in order to acquire the experience necessary to up their game.
But the European Taekwondo Union is now launching a scheme that could help aspiring fighters vie for the top spot.
“We are launching our Performance Scheme, aiming towards countries like Malta, specifically, who do not have the capacity to offer full-time training because it’s just too expensive. We are doing it [directly] from our organization.”
“It’s not only [centred around] athletes, but around coaches too. Because it is they, who work on a daily basis with the athletes.”
“This will help them both, take steps towards the elite level.”
Schunken’s presence was an opportunity for him to catch a glimpse of the newly formed National Taekwondo League established by the association. An ongoing ‘Premiere League’-style tournament, created for Maltese athletes to keep the sport going.
“This is a good development and is one of the examples where the new [association] is thriving.”
Presently, high-performance countries like South Korea and Iran use a league system as a means to select their national players.
The event would even cater to spectators
Spectators would be able to attend the event, but would also be able to watch from a direct YouTube stream, as is the case with most high-profile Taekwondo tournaments.
Still, Schunken eyes a hopeful return to normality, in the wake of what could potentially be the end of COVID-19 restrictions on sports.
“Life should continue. We were one of the first organisations to get competitions going again. So much so that we started operating again in late 2020.”
“We took the decision to continue, even though it forced us to build some steps to [refine] the process. But this is how we had to survive, as an organisation, and make sure that everybody can continue playing sports.”
The games are set for December, with Maltese fighters’ preparation currently underway. A time for our hard-working athletes to put their skills to the test on the big stage.
Tag a fighter!