Thirty-seven up-and-coming Taekwondo athletes will make their way to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to take on the world at the World Taekwondo Cadet and Junior World Championships.
The team will see 17 Cadets and 20 Juniors fly the flag for Australia at World Taekwondo's most prestigious junior events after making selection at last month's selection event at the Whitlam Leisure Centre in Liverpool.
The selection event saw 63 Cadets and 85 Juniors fighting for a spot in one of the 38 divisions on offer across both events, with athletes who placed first in their nominated division selected for the applicable national team.
The World Taekwondo Cadet and Junior World Championships come off the back of a successful Korean Open campaign, which allowed several selected athletes to use the event to prepare for Bulgaria.
The group will be led by Pathway Lead Ali Khalil who recently returned from the Korean Open, and Team Manager Anita Tippet, who earlier this year accompanied the Combat Institute of Australia to the Sofia Open in Bulgaria as team attaché. A small team of coaches, trainers, and medical personnel will support the team while overseas after they nominated for selection.
The Australian Poomsae Team has returned from the 2026 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Chuncheon, South Korea, with three medals: one gold and two silver.
Over five days of competition at the largest World Poomsae Championships ever held, Australian athletes made history in both the cadet and masters divisions, and pushed deeper into the draw across more age groups than in recent campaigns.
Janine Watson has called time on her 19-year taekwondo career, competing at an international level in both kyorugi and poomsae. Watson finishes as Australia's most decorated para athlete, leaving behind a legacy both on and off the mat.
Australia’s para taekwondo program will be represented by two athletes on the Gold Coast this month, with Shrijana Ghising and Evie Ruffle set to contest the Australian Open, WT President’s Cup and Oceania Championships in an important competition block ahead of the Para World Championships later this year.
