By XinHua News
13.06.2004
Choue Chung-won, vice president of the South Korean Olympic Committee (KOC), was elected as the new president of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) in Incheon, on Friday, June 11th 2004.
Choue, 57, a former president of Seoul's Kyung Hee University, garnered 106 votes to beat Park Cha-suck, 59, a past chairman of the Pan American Taekwondo Union. A total of 149 representatives from the WTF's 176 members took part in the election held during the federation's Extraordinary General Assembly.
Choue will serve the former WTF President Kim Un Yong's remaining tenure, during which time he is expected to secure a firm foothold to be reelected for a full four-year term in May next year at the WTF's general meeting in Spain.
Park Sun-jae, acting president of the WTF, withdrew his bid for the top post, shortly before the opening of Friday's assembly, leaving only Choue and Park Cha-suck in the competition.
Choue earned a master's degree in international politics from Fairleigh Dickinson University in the United States in 1974 and a doctorate in the same field from Belgium's Katholieke UniversiteitLeuven in 1984.
He has said that the WTF should be reborn as a new sports body through the "New World Taekwondo Movement" in order to upgrade itsglobal status. Choue has also vowed to build a new headquarters building for the WTF in Seoul and create a 2 million dollars fund to financially support taekwondo associations in developing countries.
