ABIDJAN, Cote d’Ivoire (Nov. 28, 2017) – Taekwondo’s premier fighters will gather to do battle in Cote d’Ivoire’s capital of Abidjan, where the World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final and the World Taekwondo Team Championships are to be contested as 2017’s fighting year draws to a close.
The events also provide a preview of the brand-new Grand Slam Championship Series, to be contested in Wuxi, China, at the very end of December and in January 2018.
The fourth and final event of 2017’s elite-level Grand Prix invitational series – following tourneys in Moscow, Russia; Rabat, Morocco; and London, Great Britain - will take place from Dec 2-3. The Grand Prix Finals are followed by the annual World Team Championships on Dec. 5-6.
Abidjan’s Palais de Sports de Treichville will host the action.
In the Grand-Prix Final, athletes in four female and four male weight categories will compete not only for Olympic ranking points, but also for prize money - USD6,000 for gold medalists, USD3,000 for silver medalists and USD1,000 for bronze medalists – and for a place in the brand new Grand Slam Championship Series. The new series will take place in Wuxi, China, in December 2017 and January 2018, offering the biggest prize money in taekwondo history.
In the World Taekwondo Team Championships, male, female and mixed-gender teams will compete. The two top female and the two top male teams also go through to the Grand Slam Team Championships in Wuxi in January.
Between the two championships - and adding a dash of glamour to the year end’s torrid sweat and noise, muscle and effort - will be the 2017 WT Gala Awards. The annual, black-tie gala dinner honors the athletes, coaches and officials of the year, and will be held on the evening of Dec. 4.
"Since the Rio Olympics in 2016, taekwondo fighters from African have been on a surge, challenging the Asians and Europeans for the prime position in the sport," said WT President Chungwon Choue. "For this reason, it is highly appropriate for World Taekwondo to bring a trio of top-tier events to the continent at year’s end."
25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
