Letter to World Taekwondo

Dear World Taekwondo,
 
To the credit of the innovations of World Taekwondo and its president, Dr. Choue, Rio 2016 did not suffer from the same scandals as previous Olympic Games. As the dust settles and we consider the transition from Rio 2016 to Tokyo 2020, we have a valuable chance to breathe as a sport, and reflect on both our current state and our direction moving forward.

While Taekwondo has already made great strides towards a truly fair game with no human error or bias, we must always go further. The core missions of 20/20 Armor are in agreement with World Taekwondo. We aim to push the sport to a new standard of measurement and scoring, but beyond that, to make Taekwondo more accessible and understandable to spectators than ever before, and to double Taekwondo’s participation worldwide from 80 to 160 million practitioners through making Taekwondo a top tier professional sport, like soccer or basketball.

We at 20/20 Armor share your challenge of delivering a sport that is exciting, dynamic, true to its past, removed of human error and bias, capable of being televised, and fitting of the Olympic Movement. We understand the evolutions and the changes you have made. And when we look at the history of the evolution of the sport, when we look at the effects of each rule change, and when we take into account the nature of the electronic systems that are applied and the technology now available, we realize there is room for a new way of thinking to create a better way of representing the values of Taekwondo; values like speed, power, and strategy, while preserving the fairness to which we have evolved and promoting a truly equal playing field.

These values will be put to the test in Tokyo 2020. For the first time, we will be put alongside Karate for an apples to apples comparison on the Olympic stage, and many fear our Olympic status will be in the balance yet again. To World Taekwondo and to practitioners around the world, 20/20 Armor makes this promise:
 
We will be ready.
 
Ali Ghafour & William Sexton
2020 Armor Founders