Taekwondo at the 1988 Summer Olympics Taekwondo at the 1988 Summer Olympics Taekwondo was a demonstration sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. It was the first time that the sport was included in the Olympic program; it would become an official sport twelve years later at the 2000 Games. A total of 120 men and 62 women from 35 different nations competed in eight different weight classes. Each event featured a single-elimination tournament to determine the winner. Competition was held at the Changchung Gymnasium from September 17 to 20. Fighters from the host nation of South Korea won nine of the sixteen events. Team
Taekwondo "unified" style of taekwondo. In 1973 the KTA established the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF, now called World Taekwondo, WT) to promote taekwondo as a sport. The International Olympic Committee recognized the WT and taekwondo sparring in 1980. For this reason, the Kukkiwon-defined style of taekwondo is sometimes referred to as "Sport-style" taekwondo, "Olympic-style" taekwondo, or "WT-style" taekwondo, but the style itself is defined by the Kukkiwon, not by the WT, and the WT competition ruleset itself only allows the use of a very small number of the total number of techniques included in the style. Therefore, the correct term for