Sport-by-sport - Taekwondo
Sarah Stevenson
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| Chairman | Jeremy Beard | |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Executive | N/A | |
| Performance Director | Gary Hall |
Sport Profile
| Funding Award (2009-2013) | £4,833,600 |
| London 2012 Performance | 1 Gold, 1 Bronze |
| Athletes on World Class Performance Programme | 17 |
| Past Performances | Olympic Games 2008: Bronze (1) - Sarah Stevenson |
| Press Officer | Steve Flynn |
| Press Officer tel | 07808 773 264 |
| Website | http://www.gbtaekwondo.co.uk/ |
| National governing body | Funding provided to Sport Taekwondo UK - On behalf of British Taekwondo Control Board |
“The funding we receive has allowed GB Taekwondo to recruit a team of High Performance coaches and support staff which has become the envy of the Taekwondo world. In particular, it has aided the training and development of British coaches who themselves are seen a credit to the UK high performance sport system.
“We’ve been able to attract world class coaches from overseas whilst maintaining a focus on developing British coaching talent, such as Paul Green and Steve Jennings, with the support of UK Sport’s elite coach development programmes.”
GB Taekwondo Performance Director Gary Hall
The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games was a breakthrough for GB Taekwondo, as Sarah Stevenson, a member of UK Sport’s World Class Performance Programme since 2002, secured the first ever British Olympic medal in the sport, winning bronze in dramatic fashion.
From this point on the sport has achieved consistently strong performances, including their best ever European Championships medal haul at the 2012 Championships in Manchester, and best ever World Championships medal haul in 2011. The 2012 European Championships in Manchester was the sixth international Taekwondo event to be staged on home soil in the past six years, through the backing of UK Sport’s World Class Events Programme.
UK Sport recognised the sport’s potential to shine in London 2012, backing them with over £4.8million for the London cycle (up from £2.7million for Beijing).
In 2011 Taekwondo relocated to the GB Taekwondo Academy, a facility that underwent a major refurbishment thanks to a project supported by Sport England, UK Sport and Manchester City Council to create a new home for the sport, where the athletes are supported by cutting edge coaching and technology plus back up from the EIS.
In 2009, The UK Talent Team launched Fighting Chance, a ground breaking talent transfer initiative. Four athletes are now part of the GB Taekwondo Academy out of over 1000 who initially applied. One of these athletes, Damon Sansum, a former kick-boxing world champion, won gold at the 2012 German Open in the -80kg division.
GB Taekwondo have been supported by UK Sport’s research and innovation team and their partners at Sheffield Hallam University to develop a multi camera contactless video capture system, allowing rapid recall of video images to reinforce coaching interventions, along with a fight data and video management system for the recall and analysis of historical performance data, competition and training footage. UK Sport’s innovation partner, defence specialists BAE Systems have also been working with the team in a top secret project designed to ensure military precision from every athlete when they take to the mat.
The coaching set up at GB Taekwondo has been boosted by both Paul Green and Steve Jennings completing UK Sport’s coach development programmes while UK Sport’s Coaching team have also worked with the GB Taekwondo coaching and leadership team to improve their structure, communication, and ways of working to develop a world class culture.
Did You Know?
GB Taekwondo’s funding from UK Sport was boosted in December 2012 by £429,600 in recognition of their medal potential for London 2012
*Accurate as of May 2012
Selected athletes:
Sarah Stevenson
Jade Jones
Lutalo Muhammad
Martin Stamper
