Mohamed Shaaban (Photo: the World Taekwondo Federation)
Mohamed Shaaban will be the first Egyptian to supervise a competition at the Olympic Games after winning a second two-year term as the chairman of the World Taekwondo (WT) Games and Equipment committee.
Shaaban won his first term in 2017 and was credited for improving all aspects of taekwondo. He will now be in charge of the sport at next year's Olympic Games in Tokyo.
"We are trying to develop the electronic system to match all the taekwondo techniques. This would be done in a way that assesses the technical difficulty of the technique and provides the scoring that is equivalent to that technique without any human intervention," he said when he first took charge two years ago.
"We are going to make sure that whatever competition we are running it runs with the highest standards following our protocols and at the same time making sure it is smooth without any technological problems."
Shaaban is the first African to head the Games and Equipment committee.
He is a former player at Al-Zohour club and was a member of the Egyptian national team between 1996 and 2004, participating in a series of championships.
He started his administrative career at the Egyptian Taekwondo Federation in 2012.
He then became director of the national teams, inspiring Egypt to win a series of trophies and medals, including Hedaya Malak's bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art based mostly on kicking, with competitors often engaging in full-contact bouts using protective gear.
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