Since its acceptance into the official Olympic Programme in the year 2000, taekwondo has gained increasing popularity. At the same time, it has also been subjected to many controversies. Many other sports, including martial arts sports, have been working hard to enter the Olympic Games (Karate being one of them). The big question to ask is “Will taekwondo be at risk of losing its position?”

2 sports were removed from the 28 core Olympic sports at an IOC vote back in 2005 and taekwondo only just survived the cut, which befell baseball and softball. Taekwondo received barely above the required majority vote to stay in the Olympics for 2012.

There is another vote to be taken in 2013 when the IOC will select only 25 core sports to be retained for future Olympics from 2020 as the permernant sports. With the inclusion of rugby and golf, both sports that has worldwide coverage and appeal, taekwondo faces an uphill task amongst the 28 sports where 3 will be eliminated from the core permernant list.

It is considered that taekwondo is in serious trouble unless it improves its viability and patch up its tarnished image from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The 7 sports went through the voting process to select the 2 sports for inclusion – the sports were Baseball, Golf, Karate, Roller Sports, Rugby, Softball and Squash.

Rugby was the 1st sport voted in after 2 rounds of voting achieving 9 votes, after Roller Sport and Squash were eliminated from the 1st and 2nd round round of voting.

Golf was the 2nd sport voted in after 4 rounds of voting achieving 9 votes, after Roller Sports, Squash and Baseball were eliminated respectively in each preceding round of voting.