Taekwondo in Kenya

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What’s the first thought that comes to mind when you think of Taekwondo? Jackie Chan? Jet Li? Or perhaps it’s the warning that comes with the movies you’ve seen this sport in – ‘Don’t try this at home.’

Short, set sequences of attack with jump kicks, spinning techniques and punches are the basics of taekwondo. We must warn you though, if you’d like to venture into this sport, you will need two things, determination and strong balance.

Developed in South Korea, the concept of taekwondo was borrowed from an earlier form of self-defence known as tae kyon. Its literal meaning is the way of the foot (tae) and the fist (kwon) It was adopted under ‘the martial arts disciplines’ in 1955 and became an Olympic medal sport in 2000.

Classified by weight classes similar to boxing, Taekwondo players are Featherweight, Flyweight, Welterweight or Heavyweight. Scoring is done based on kicks and punches to the body and the mastery used. However, unlike in boxing, punches to the head are prohibited.

In Kenya, this was a sport that rose from humble beginnings in the early seventies. Dutch missionary, Father Arnold Grol had set up a juvenile rehabilitation centre that would cater to street orphans. The development of the centre was a success and Father Grol went a step further by looking into various sports that the children could take part in. He approached Kenyan radio broadcaster Samson Lipuka and together they formed Undugu Taekwondo Club. Its aim? To develop the children’s physical strength and keep them positively active.

Broadcasting accelerated awareness of the sport, helping the club acquire funds to ensure the children had access to equipment as they received their training.  Slowly but surely Undugu’s popularity grew.

With more children joining over time and the overall skill getting better a national team that would represent us at international competitions was put together. The Taekwondo Association of Kenya was formed in 1978 chaired by the late Stephen Mwangi and outstanding players were selected to join the national team.

The team made their premier at the fourth All Africa Games in 1987 where they both impressed the judges and emerged victorious. Of the team, John Kariuki secured a gold medal while Earnest Olayo, Henry Bwire, John Njoroge, Patrick Ngana and John Mboya earned bronze medals for the Kenyan flag. Since then, other talented sportsmen and women have followed suit making Kenya one of the top ranked African nations in Taekwondo. Another exemplary result from our taekwondo team was at the 1996 Africa Championships where a full team of ladies returned home with medals. Kenya’s haul included 12 medals including five golds and of those, four were won by ladies; Wambui Ngunya, Janet Oklal, Judy Mwihaki and Nancy Karanja.

Mildred Alango and Dickson Wamwiri are a pair who went the extra mile and became Kenya’s first taekwondo athletes to qualify for the Olympics. They did our country proud in Beijing in 2008 and Mildred advanced to the bronze medal round.

An extremely talented Kenyan team, don’t you think?

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