Two or three Moldovan athletes will take part in the WTF World Taekwondo Grand Prix that will be held this autumn, president of the Taekwondo Federation of Moldova Igor Iuzefovici announced in a news conference at IPN.
Igor Iuzefovici said the neighboring states, unlike the Republic of Moldova, do not have access to taekwondo at European and world levels even if their population is much larger. “Results started to appear in 2013. We then staged in Moldova the Youth European Taekwondo Championships and won two medals there – a silver and a bronze one,” stated the Federation’s president.
In 2014, the men’s taekwondo squad of the Republic of Moldova ranked third among teams at the European Championship in Baku. In 2015, Moldova won the first medal at the European Taekwondo Championships. In 2016, naturalized athlete Aaron Cook took part in the Rio Olympic Games. “None of the representatives of the National Olympic and Sports Committee attended the competition that involved Aaron Cook. Furthermore, the return ticket to the Olympic Games was bought by the Federation,” stated Igor Iuzefovici.
Also, the Taekwondo Federation of Moldova, together with the World Taekwondo Federation and the European Taekwondo Federation, created the International Taekwondo Academy in Moldova. “This Academy aims to form, educate and train young coaches. We all know – the coaches form the future athletes. The coaches are the fathers of athletes and these should be educated,” said the Federation’s president. According to him, by a taekwondo section was opened in ATU Gagauzia, Bender and Tiraspol.
Vladislav Arventi said that as a coach at Sports School No. 6, he cooperates very productively with the Taekwondo Federation of Moldova and the problems that appear meanwhile are solved swiftly.
Igor Iuzefovici said the Taekwondo Federation of Moldova and the National Olympic and Sports Committee are now in litigation and the dispute is to be examined by the Court of Arbitration for Sport based in Lausanne on October 3 this year.
