Official Team KUSA Blog

The sport of Olympic Taekwondo is evolving. Companies are developing systems to take some of the human-error component out of scoring. Much like we’re seeing with other sports, scoring is becoming a science. When people work this hard, spend this much money, and dedicate this much time to a sport, they want to know that the outcome of their competition is both real and fair. And human bias never promotes either.

The only problem is that we’re stuck in an early adopter era where there is no clear standard for equipment. Lajust won early contracts with the WTF and USAT, but the Olympic Taekwondo community began rejecting their product for fear of a lack of compatibility and accuracy. The Daedo team has been hard at work edging their product into the market. It’s much like the early battle we saw for high-definition movies: did the world want Blue Ray or HD DVD?

All battles for economic supremacy in a market like the one Olympic Taekwondo enjoys come to an end. A standard must exist for wide adoption to take place. Nobody wants to have to own two brands of expensive sparring equipment. And they don’t want to have to learn the ins and outs of two different scoring systems.

Adidas tried their hand in the E-Hogu scoring system race but they’ve since accepted defeat. And it seems that Daedo is going to edge out Lajust. The WTF will be using the Daedo system in London in 2012.

What does all that mean for us?

Success in the new era of Olympic Taekwondo is partly dependent on owning one of these systems so we can train our coaches and fighters on it. We need to know exactly how it works and our athletes must be comfortable fighting within it. But we don’t want to make the wrong choice and train on a system that never ends up getting adopted.

Based on our research and speaking with many in-the-know people, we’ve decided to buy the Daedo system for our team and we expect to begin training on it in January 2012. At this time, the USAT and AAU are moving slowly on the E-Hogu systems. USAT started to make the switch, but they chose Lajust and are quickly backpedaling. Our source with the AAU has said that when the AAU does get around to adopting the E-Hogu system, Daedo will most likely be their choice.

Our forecast is that Olympic Taekwondo will absolutely and completely move to the E-Hogu technology as soon as a clear standard emerges. Taking the human-error element out of scoring is simply too necessary in this sport. So we’re making a highly educated guess and moving to begin training on the new system. As for our athletes there’s no downside. If you can score points within an E-Hogu system, you can score points within the traditional scoring model; possibly even more so.

Our goal is that our athletes are always as ready as possible for the evolving competition atmosphere. This is an expensive move for our team, but it’s a necessary one. ”To not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of virtues.”