The tenth World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships got underway in Lima, Peru today ©WTF

The tenth World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) World Poomsae Championships got underway in Peru's capital Lima today with South Korea and Turkey both winning two gold medals each.


In all seven gold medals were available on day one, with Mexico, Chinese Taipei and the United States also seeing players top the podium.

Mexico’s William Arroyo came out on top in the individual male cadet division, beating Iran’s Sepehr Abdi to the gold medal.

Home favourite Santiago Aguirre Flores won bronze along with Jae-wook Yoon from South Korea.

In the individual female cadet division, Yu-ha Kim from South Korea won gold with Huiyue Zhang from China taking silver.

Melia Hus of The Netherlands and Turkey's Sevval Yarar claimed the two bronze medals.

Mexico’s William Arroyo (centre right) came out on top in the individual male cadet division ©WTF
Mexico’s William Arroyo (centre right) came out on top in the individual male cadet division ©WTF

Meanwhile, in the male under-60 division, Mustafa Yilmaz of Turkey secured gold as he finished ahead of France’s Phillippe Montosi, who won silver, whilst South Korea’s Byoung-young Lim and Australia’s Robert Pace shared bronze.

South Korea’s second gold of the day came in the pairs under-30s division as they saw off competition from Thailand who won silver and Iran who took bronze.

Elsewhere, in the team under-30s category, Chinese Taipei took the gold medal with Vietnam finishing with silver and Iran, as with their pair in the under-30 category, finishing with bronze.

In the individual freestyle over-17 division, the United States won gold, Spain won silver and The Netherlands clinched bronze.

Freestyle pair under-17 honours went to Turkey who won gold, while Spain claimed silver and the US did enough for bronze.

The World Championships will continue over the next three days and can be watched live on the WTF YouTube Channel.

This year’s Championships feature a record number of participants, with 760 athletes from 55 countries competing for a total of 36 gold medals.

The event in Lima began with an Opening Ceremony where WTF President Chungwon Choue was joined by International Olympic Committee (IOC) Member and WTF vice president Ivan Dibos.

The Pan America Taekwondo Union President, Ji Ho Choi, as well as Peru Olympic Committee President Jose Quinones Gonzalez, joined them.

Choue spoke about the impact of the inclusion of Poomsae taekwondo at the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018 and the "significant increase" in popularity of the sport around the world.

Currently not on the Olympic programme, poomsae is a non-sparring event where individuals or teams perform a "sequence of movements arranged in a meaningful order in response to attacks from multiple imaginary assailants".