A profile of the Youth Olympic Taekwondo Athlete.

Our study aims to identify trends in anthropomorphic attributes and competitive strategies of successful (medalists) versus non medalist young Olympic Taekwondo competitors by gender in terms of body mass, body-mass index (BMI) and fighting technique at the Youth Olympic Games 2010. Results were then compared to adult Taekwondo Olympic athletes in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Data on 96 Taekwondo athletes were obtained from the official Youth Olympic website. A LOGIT analysis was performed on the following six independent variables: height, body mass, body mass index, gender, techniques used to score, and warnings obtained during a match. The study did find some differences between winners and non-winners for males and female, although none of the differences were statistically significant. Consequently, training personnel may enhance winning potential of Taekwondo competitors by focusing on offensive versus defensive techniques and improving the quality of punching.