Choue Chung-won, president of World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), said on the sidelines of an Olympic test event in Beijing on Thursday that the Korean traditional martial art would stay in Olympic official program.

"I'm not worried about the outlook of taekwondo as it is one of the most beloved sports in the world," said Choue during the "2008 Good Luck Beijing" International Taekwondo Invitational Tournament, which has drawn 128 athletes from 27 countries and regions.

"Now we already have 188 members and we will discuss on adding six more to 194 at the oncoming conference in May. Besides, the population who play taekwondo in the world has increased to 70 million which is the second largest number among all the competitive events, only less than the soccer. So we have reason to picture its bright future," said the president.

According to Choue, the WTF is also planning to expand the medals' distribution in the Olympics. Besides, compared to the 60 teams in Athens, three more delegations will appear at the arena in the August.

"First, we will bring the two-bronze-medal rule to the Beijing Olympics; then we will consider increasing the number of category from four to eight in men's and women's division respectively in the future, which might be achieved after the London Olympics."

On the controversy surrounding misjudging referees, Chou said that the WTF had carried out a series of detailed measures to minimize the problem.

Since last summer, 54 out of 140 judges had been selected to accept the systemic training, which included the practical tests of five continental championships. Then the 29 eligible judges will show up in the Beijing Olympics.

The president also spoke highly of taekwondo development in China. He said he was impressed by the fact that taekwondo had entered some elementary schools as elective courses, let alone hundreds of popular clubs among nation-wide universities.

"I will tell you a story to show the popularity of this sport in China. Last year, I made a trip to Shaolin Temple in Zhengzhou city, where I found the number of people who played taekwondo was 100,000 while Wushu's practitioners yet had a smaller population of 40,000. From this, We can see China's potential strength in taekwondo tomorrow," said Choue.

(Xinhua News Agency February 29, 2008)