Refugee taekwondo athletes receive words of encouragement

World Taekwondo President Choue Chung-won meets refugee athletes on the second day of the Tashkent 2026 World Taekwondo Junior Championships at Martial Arts Sports activities Advanced in Olympic Metropolis, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Monday. Korea Instances photograph by Choi Received-suk

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — They arrived from refugee camps in Jordan, hoping to check their expertise in opposition to the world’s finest younger taekwondo opponents. On the Tashkent 2026 World Taekwondo Junior Championships, 4 athletes representing the World Taekwondo Refugee Staff discovered themselves on the heart of quiet consideration — a reminder of how sport continues to succeed in throughout boundaries.

World Taekwondo President Choue Chung-won with the athletes — Essa Mousa Alkhalaf (males’s -55 kilograms), Mahmoud Qasim Abukhshet (males’s -51 kilograms), Kafa Al Mubarak (girls’s -55 kilograms) and Aya Morad Alahmad (girls’s -68 kilograms) — and their coach, Ahmad Faisal Okaidat. Choue recommended their progress and inspired them to remain targeted on their targets, emphasizing that self-discipline and persistence are what finally result in success.

The Taekwondo Refugee Staff is launched in the course of the opening ceremony of the Tashkent 2026 World Taekwondo Junior Championships on the Martial Arts Sports activities Advanced in Olympic Metropolis, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sunday. Korea Instances photograph by Choi Received-suk

Choue referred to Yahya Al Ghotani, a refugee athlete from the Azraq camp who competed on the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games, for instance of how dedication can flip alternative into achievement.

World Taekwondo Council Member and Taekwondo Humanitarian Basis Operations Director Maher Magableh, together with World Taekwondo Secretary Normal Website positioning Jeong-kang, additionally attended the assembly, reflecting the group’s ongoing help for refugee athletes by the Taekwondo Humanitarian Basis initiative.

The Taekwondo Refugee Staff’s coach Lisa Vogt, proper, encourages Nasim Mahmoudi within the girls’s -46 kilogram spherical of 64 match on the primary day of Tashkent 2026 World Taekwondo Junior Championships at Martial Arts Sports activities Advanced in Olympic Metropolis, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sunday. Korea Instances photograph by Choi Received-suk

For the younger crew, competing in Tashkent is a part of a wider journey — one which merges coaching with hope. Their presence on the championships symbolizes World Taekwondo’s persevering with dedication to inclusion and to increasing entry to sport for displaced communities around the globe.

The Taekwondo Refugee Staff on the 2026 Tashkent World Taekwondo Junior Championships consists of 4 Syrian taekwondo athletes coming from Jordan and one Iranian primarily based in Switzerland.