About us - OLD
OUR STORY
The founders of 20/20 Armor were competitive Olympic Taekwondo National team members. In 2009 (all the founders just recently retired from competition) the sport of Olympic Taekwondo changed from points awarded by human judges to points awarded by electronic sensors on athletes’ equipment.
This change was made to remove the human error and bias that results from such a fast paced and high stakes game. Although the electronic systems have done much to removing human error and bias, they still receive strong criticism from athletes, coaches, referees and spectators alike.
Currently, the system of electronic scoring rewards a very limited body type (tall and lean) and limited techniques (cut kicks) and uses a point system that is difficult to understand. Players who are faster or stronger and who can throw a wider variety of kicks have far lower chance of winning.
Spectators are disengaged because they can not quickly understand what is going on. These limitations make Taekwondo less exciting to watch and less fun to play.
20/20 Armor is a system of equipment and new scoring rules that will drive athletes to perform in a way that keeps the athletes and spectators engaged in the sport. It will allow players of all body types fast, strong, lean and fighting techniques an equal chance to win and uses a scoring method similar to popular video games that is understood in less than 3 seconds by multiple generations – from ages 5 to 55.
The product was born from the need to fix Olympic Taekwondo, but the product has applications and benefits for day to day training for all striking martial arts such as Karate, MMA, Muay Thai, Kick Boxing, Wing Chun and Krav Maga.
Ali Ghafour | Founder & CEO
William Sexton | Founder & COO
Tony Kook | Director
OUR VISION
To be the standard of impact measurement for all martial arts.
To be the official scoring system of the Olympics.
To make Taekwondo into a professional sport.
ADVISORS
USMAN DILDAR
WT RELATIONS
World Taekwondo Federation Vice President & Great Britain Taekwondo Vice President
ARLENE LIMAS
GRASSROOTS DEVELOPMENT
Olympic Gold Medalist – Seoul 1988
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) National Coach and Executive Committee Member
MARKUS KOHLÖFFEL
PRODUCT ADOPTION
Adidas Head of Dev. for Electronic Chestguard & IOC Coach for Olympic Solidarity
DR. PATRICE REMARCK
COACH REPRESENTATIVE
Olympian – Seoul 1988
AAU, African & European Olympic Coach
DAVID BOWDEN
MANUFACTURING
Senior executive with 30+ years experience Specializing in large scale manufacturing
PROF. CHIN SEUNG TAE
TAEKWONDO DEVELOPMENT
3x World Champion – 1993, 1995, 1997 & Taekwondo Professor – Dankook University
LINDA GALEA
FINANCE
CFO and senior executive
Specializes in sports and manufacturing
YVETTE YONG
ATHLETE AMBASSADOR
World Ranked #1 in WTF Taekwondo
2x World Champion and 12x Canadian National Team member