Australia's Junior National Team kicked off their World Championships campaign with a high-performance training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, marking a key milestone in their preparation.
CombatAUS and Australian Taekwondo are pleased to announce that National Head Coach Dr Seokhun Lee has renewed his contract through to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
Dr Lee will continue leading the Taekwondo High-Performance Program in Australia, with an expanded focus on technical leadership of the sport's High Performance and Pathways programs to provide greater national alignment.
Australian Taekwondo Chief Executive Officer Josh O'Brien said "We are very excited to secure the services of Seokhun as our National Head Coach through the 2028 Olympic cycle, and look forward to working with him to develop Taekwondo in Australia. Thank you to CombatAUS for their support in re-signing such a high calibre Head Coach."
CombatAUS Chief Executive Officer Alex Vallentine said "We are incredibly pleased to retain Seokhun for the next Olympic cycle. We will work in close partnership with Australian Taekwondo, under Seokhun's technical leadership, to continue developing the competitiveness of Australian Taekwondo athletes on the world stage."
As a foundation of Taekwondo's High-Performance strategy, Dr Lee will continue to base himself in Melbourne as a coach at the National Performance Centre. However, he will also spend more time overseeing and engaging with associate performance programs nationally.
"Thank you to CombatAUS and Australian Taekwondo for believing in me and my program," Dr Lee said.
"I can already see so much talent in Australia's next generation of athletes. Wanting to continue working with them is the main reason why I've chosen to stay in Australia for another four years. My two goals since I started have been to bring Australia together as one team and replicate the 2000s era of Australian Taekwondo, where we were a strong and feared team. We are almost there, so hopefully, we can see the same success as Lauren Burns and Daniel Trenton in the Olympic cycles ahead," he said.
Commencing with CombatAUS in early 2022, Dr Lee has brought a wealth of high-performance coaching experience and advanced knowledge and understanding of the competitive international Taekwondo environment, having previously been Head Coach of the professional men's team Suyeong-gu in Korea and National Coach of the Korean Taekwondo Team.
Having a coach of Dr Lee's calibre recommit for the 2028 LA Olympic cycle is an excellent result for Taekwondo in Australia.
Dr Lee has expressed his faith in the quality and direction of the Australian Taekwondo system and is convinced that now, with aligned national programs and systems in place, Australia will continue to develop world-class athletes and deliver world-class results over the next cycle.
Dr Lee is excited to build on his first two and a half years in the role, which has delivered one World Championship and two Grand Prix medals.
The core purpose of the National Head Coach role is to:
Australia's Junior National Team kicked off their World Championships campaign with a high-performance training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, marking a key milestone in their preparation.
Victorian Bailey Lewis delivered an impressive performance at the Olympic Games, making a remarkable debut in the Taekwondo competition at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Warren Hansen was one of eight Australian Taekwondo athletes to compete at the Sydney 2000 Olympics – the first ever games to include Taekwondo as an official sport – where he acquitted himself well in the men's 80kg event.
