Technical-Tactical Actions Used to Score in Taekwondo: An Analysis of Two Medalists in Two Olympic Championships

Abstract

Research in taekwondo has traditionally focused on specific aspects athletes' overall technical and tactical skills, while ignoring other important issues such as identifying how successful athletes score points. The aim of the current study was to follow two medalists through two Olympic Championships (2012 and 2016) to discover the effective patterns associated with scoring in taekwondo using an observational methodology. An ad-hoc taekwondo observational tool was used to codify the actions performed by the athletes. An observational descriptive and multivariate analysis of 1,688 actions performed by the athletes was conducted. A lag sequential and polar coordinate analysis was performed that considered tactics, techniques and the kicking zone as factors related to score (one to four points). The results showed that one point was scored with direct attacks (DIAs) and actions to the chest where DIAs also occurred prior to scoring. After scoring one-point, opponents tended to gain points by kicking the opponent's head. Two points were scored with simultaneous spinning kicks. Cuts occurred prior to and after scoring while posterior counterattacks (PCAs) occurred after. Three points were scored by performing indirect attacks and PCAs to the head. Cuts, dodges, and linear actions preceded the three-point score while dodges, DIAs, and linear actions to the chest also occurred after the three point-actions. In conclusion, these two athletes not only mastered the whole tactics but also used specific strategies to score. That is, they anticipated the opponent's attack to score one point by kicking the opponent directly and performed spinning kicks from short distances when they perceived an opponent's cutting action to score two points. Finally, these athletes indirectly attacked the opponent when they dodged by kicking their head and counterattacked posteriorly when an opponent's cut was perceived to score three points. Thus, they used the most difficult tactics to achieve the highest score. It is suggested that coaches and psychologists train athletes in better decision-making by preparing them to not only prepare their own attacks but to systematically use the intended attacks by their opponents to score their own points in accordance with the successful patterns extracted in this study.

Serving Patterns of Women’s Badminton Medalists in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

“…Therefore, these individual performance profiles based on multiple performance indicators make it possible to describe the idiosyncratic playing patterns of each player from technical, tactical, and strategical approaches (O'Donoghue, 2013). Thus, the analysis of successful players (medalists) is needed in order to update and manage the current player's performance and its evolution tournament to tournament in accordance with the serving and playing patterns identified (Menescardi et al, 2019).…”

Una Actualización De La Lógica Interna De La Competición Del Combate en El Taekwondo

“…These results pointed out that elite athletes master and use all the tactical options included on the prior schema (tactical repertoire). Despite of this domain of the tactical repertoire, athletes used more direct attacks to score one point (to the trunk), simultaneous spinning kicks to score two points and indirect attacks or posterior counterattacks to score three points to the head (MENESCARDI et al, 2019b).…”

Talent and Creativity of Taekwondoists Winners of the 2016 Summer Olympics

“…Talent is also related to the identification and use of movement patterns adapted 2 of 15 to changing context of performance (e.g., rule changes, enhanced technological equipment or new performance strategies developed by clever opponents or coaches) to achieve performance goals [8]. This is especially important in a dynamic sport, such as taekwondo in which regulations have changed several times in the last decade [9][10][11]. To train attention and creative responses in a sport, it is important to know how the best elite athletes (winners of Olympic tournaments) behave and react to their opponent's tactics by analyzing their competitive patterns.…”

“…To date, studies carried out focusing on taekwondo have used mixed research methods [12] as observational methodologies (OM) to collect, process and analyze information that cannot be studied in the artificial setting of a laboratory, as the information of the behaviors and interactions naturally occur in a competitive situation [13]. Scientific literature in this sport has focused on the technical-tactical aspects of all competitors and has ignored other important issues, such as identifying the behavior of talented or successful athletes [11]. The majority of the literature on this sport focuses on the analysis of frequencies of actions among elite athletes [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”