Korea invented Taekwondo. They've now been outperformed. Can this year's Olympians smash the slump?

Team Korea began a quest at the Paris Olympics Wednesday to recreate their glory in the sport they invented: Taekwondo.

Korean taekwondo practitioners train at Jincheon National Training Center in Jincheon, North Chungcheong on June 25. [NEWS1]

Team Korea began a quest at the Paris Olympics Wednesday to recreate their glory in the sport they invented: Taekwondo.

Four Korean taekwondo practitioners — Park Tae-joon, Seo Geon-woo, Kim Yu-jin and Lee Da-bin — will be in action to bring back an Olympic gold medal in taekwondo that Korea did not secure for the first time at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Korea ended with one silver and two bronze in the sport to finish in ninth place in the medal standings in Tokyo, marking the country’s first time finishing the Games without a single gold.

Korea still remains the most successful country in taekwondo in Olympic history with 22 medals — 12 gold, three silver and seven bronze — but other countries have emerged as strong contenders in recent Olympics.

Since the sport’s debut at the 2000 Olympics, Korea has collected multiple medals at every Games, but that dominance saw a decline in 2012 when the tournament adopted a new electronic scoring system and instant video replays.

The introduction of the new systems allowed China and European countries to challenge Korea, with Lee In-jong and Cha Dong-min becoming the first two Korean taekwondo practitioners to fail to win a medal in Olympic history at the 2012 London Olympics.

Korea bounced back to return to the top of the medal standings in taekwondo at the 2016 Olympics, but that success did not carry over to Tokyo as the country returned home without a gold medal.

The Paris Olympics will put the four taekwondo practitioners to the test of whether they can cut the country’s slump.

China, who is the second most successful country in the sport with 11 Olympic medals, is one of the strong competitors this year.

A total of 128 competitors — 64 men and 64 women — across eight disciplines are scheduled to compete in taekwondo, which runs from Wednesday to Saturday.

As of press time Wednesday, Park booked a berth in the men’s -58 kilogram quarterfinals after beating Granado Yohandri in the round of 16 earlier in the day.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]