SEOUL, Korea (April 24, 2023) - World Taekwondo has selected Chuncheon in the Gangwon province of the Republic of Korea as its preferred city following an extensive bid and evaluation process.

 

World Taekwondo and Chuncheon will discuss the proposed details for the new headquarters, including location, construction, rights and responsibilities, financial support and design, between April 28 and July 28. Once the final details have been agreed, an official contract signing ceremony will be scheduled for August.

 

The selection of Chuncheon followed an open bid process was overseen by a specially created ad-hoc Evaluation Committee chaired by World Taekwondo Treasurer Pimol Srivikorn and composed of Maher Magableh, World Taekwondo Council member and World Taekwondo Advisors Youngsun Kim (former diplomat), Juhwan Seo (professor of landscape architecture) and Hyeongtaek Lee (lawyer).

 

As part of the bid process, cities were invited to submit letters of intent. On February 10, 2023, notice of solicitation was sent to the cities of Chuncheon and Gimpo. Proposals and the completed questionnaires were submitted by the two cities on April 17. Both cities had the opportunity to present their proposals with Chuncheon presenting on April 18 and Gimpo on April 19. Later, the committee members made site visits to the both cities on April 18 and April 19 respectively before they organized the evaluation meetings on April 19 and April 24 to select the successful candidate.

 

Chuncheon was selected as the preferred host city based on its strong Taekwondo heritage, having hosted many national and international Taekwondo events for the past 20 years, and its high scores across the evaluation criteria of sustainability, suitability, facility infrastructure and expected impact.