SEOUL, Korea (Aug 21, 2017) – Two vice presidents and four council members have been appointed to the World Taekwondo Council by the organization’s president, Chungwon Choue.
Peruvian IOC Member Ivan Dibos and President of the Azerbaijan Taekwondo Federation Kamaladdin Heydarov were both appointed WT vice presidents, while President of the Trinidad and Tobago Taekwondo Federation Anthony Ferguson, IOC Member Aicha Garad Ali of Djibouti, President of the Italian Taekwondo Federation Angelo Cito and Former President of the Aruba Taekwondo Association Marliu de Veer were appointed council members.
Dibos, Heydarov, Ferguson and Ali are re-appointees; Cito and De Veer are new appointees.
The appointments were made under WT Statute 6.6. Under this, the WT president is empowered to appoint certain officials, taking into account distribution of gender, continental representation and special skills/qualifications.
“As we move into a new Olympic cycle, refocus on making World Taekwondo as athlete-centric as possible and upgrade our humanitarian activities, these appointments finalize our leadership team for the near future,” said Choue. “The latest appointments arm World Taekwondo with a diverse range of skills, talents, contacts and voices, which when unified under the WT Council, will help our organization achieve its ambitious goals.”
Twelve WT council members and two auditors were elected/re-elected at the WT General Assembly on June 23, 2017 on the occasion of the 2017 Muju World Taekwondo Championships. They are as follows:
- Driss El Hilali of Morocco (re-elected)
- Issaka Ide of Niger (newly re-elected)
- An–chin Hsu of Chinese Taipei (elected)
- Kook-hyun Jung of Korea (re-elected)
- Hazem Ahmad Awwad Naimat of Jordan (re-elected)
- Tae-kyung Kim of New Zealand (re-elected)
- Jesus Castellanos Pueblas of Spain (re-elected)
- Metin Sahin of Turkey (re-elected)
- Anatoly Terekhov of Russia (re-elected)
- Maria Borello of Guatemala (re-elected)
- Inseon Kim of Canada (newly elected)
- Juan Manuel Lopez Delgado of Mexico (re-elected)
Two auditors were also re-elected: Ali Sagirkaya of Turkey and Dalibor Krpan of Croatia.
The World Taekwondo Athletes Committee also elected chairpersons during 2017 World Taekwondo Championships. The two are both retired athletes: Nadin Dewani of Jordan, a member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission and the first Jordanian to win an Asian title; and Pascal Gentil of France, a four-time World Cup champion, three-time European champion and two-time Olympic medalist. The two committee heads become automatic members of the World Taekwondo Council, with four-year terms.
Moreover, the current presidents of the WT’s Continental Unions were all re-elected on June 23 at the General Assembly. They are: General Ahmed El-Fouly of the African Taekwondo Union; Kyu-seok Lee of the Asia Taekwondo Union; Athanasios Pragalos of the European Taekwondo Union; John Kotsifas of the Oceania Taekwondo Union; and Ji-ho Choi of the Pan American Taekwondo Union. All have become automatic vice presidents of World Taekwondo.
