Referee Selection training camp for the Beijing 2008 Olympics
The WTF is serious about implementing one of its greatest reforms which is to have fair competitions through objective and clear refereeing and judging systems. It is high on the agenda as goal #2 in its Strategic Plan.
Taekwondo sport was a popular subject for discussion after the Athens Olympics and the officiating was targeted as an area that required scrutiny. From 2005, the WTF embarked on a mission to develop an electronics scoring system with a focus to eliminate errors made by human judges. For many, this is not a good step forward as in any sport played by humans, it is the human touch and the human involvement and human judging that brings “life and excitement” to a match being contested by human players. Sports such as tennis, cricket, football, soccer, gymnastics and others do not have electronic scoring judges do they? They have human referees and human judges that make the final rulings, make the final points scores. They only use electronic devices and instruments to aid their final judgment where required, just like hawk eye for tennis, the 3rd umpire for deciding leg before wicket of catches for cricket, video replay to determine if a player grounded the ball to decide tries in rugby matches.
The WTF trialed the electronic scoring body protectors and there is still much work to be done in its development for acceptance by all involved in the sport, players, coaches, referees and spectators. The original plan was to introduce the electronic scoring body protectors at the World Championships in
So this leaves the only option for the WTF to select the best 29 referees to be fit and ready to officiate at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Leading up to this, in efforts to ensure fair judgment, the most experienced and capable referees were used at the WTF world events such as the World juniors, World Cup and recently the World Championships. Each of these competitions rewarded 5 best referee awards as a start to identifying the best referees around. At the same time, the WTF also sanctioned under performing or unfair referees with 4 from the world juniors and 2 from the world championships.
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