Park Tae-joon, a South Korean athlete, made history by winning the first-ever Olympic gold medal in the lightest weight class of Taekwondo.
This marks the first Olympic gold medal in Taekwondo for S. Korea, the sport’s founding country, in eight years, following the disappointment of not winning any gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
On Aug. 7 (local time), Park Tae-joon clinched victory in the men’s 58kg Taekwondo final at the 2024 Paris Olympics held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, defeating Gashim Magomedov by forfeit.
Park Tae-joon’s rise to success is a remarkable story that began with the World Taekwondo (WT) Grand Prix Challenge, a tournament established to expand international competition opportunities for promising Taekwondo athletes worldwide.
Park participated in the Jun. 2022 tournament with a wild card from the Korea Taekwondo Association’s training program and won unexpectedly. He then surprised everyone again by winning the Manchester Grand Prix Series in October, where he was invited as the Grand Prix Challenge champion, making his mark on the international stage.
Last year, he won the 54kg class at the World Championships, establishing himself as a world-class athlete and earning the MVP honor of the tournament.
A representative of the Korea Taekwondo Association commented, “Nowadays, many Korean athletes struggle to perform at their best due to extreme nervousness during their first international competitions. However, Park Tae-joon has shown remarkable composure, winning every debut tournament he enters. He demonstrated this strength without reservation on his first Olympic stage as well.”
