RAWALPINDI, Jul 21 (APP): The 15th Korean Ambassador National Senior Taekwondo Championship will roll into action here at Shehbaz Sharif Sports Complex on Friday.
Pakistan Taekwondo Federation (PTF) President Lt Col (R) Raja Wasim Ahmed told media at a news conference on Thursday that senior (male/female/para) teams of all the four provinces, Islamabad, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistatan, Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, Navy and other affiliated units of the federation would feature in the four-day event.
“The event will help bring the players from all over the country together and provide an opportunity to them to learn from each other’s experience,” he said.
According to Wasim several high-level officials, including Korean Ambassador, Korean Military Defence Attaché, Director Army Sports, Director Naval Sports, Director Air Force Sports, renowned sport personalities and members of the National Assembly will attend ceremonies of different events during the Championship as chief guests and guests of honour.
“Ambassador of Republic of Korea Suh Sangpyo in Islamabad and Minister for Inter Provincial Coordination Ehsan Ur Rehman Mazari are scheduled to attend the opening ceremony,” he said.
“Hopefully, the event will help project the soft image of Pakistan and attract a capacity crowd as this is a mega extravaganza of taekwondo wherein hundreds of talented players will be in action.
“Moreover, the event will also help promote the game of taekwondo as teams from all over the country are featuring in it”, he added.
Wasim said the event would also provide a chance to players from diverse and far-flung areas of the country to come in contact with each other at a joint platform and interact with each other to have national level exposure. “This will help promote harmony and peace in the society,” he said.
He said taekwondo was an Olympic sport and the PTF was trying to field its athletes in different qualifiers to earn spots for the coveted event.
“Our athletes also featured in qualifiers for Tokyo Olympics but Covid-19 pandemic affected their training and consequently they could not make a cut to the Olympics.
However, we hope they’ll claim space in the next Olympics,” he said.
“Our players are highly talented which is evident from the fact that they won a number of medals at international events. In the recent Asian Championship in Korea they displayed standout performance, earning two silver medals for the country,” he added.
He said the federation was trying to get government patronage to promote taekwondo at the grass roots level.
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