Gary Hall Taekwondo Performance Director for the British Olympic Team

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In the second of her interviews at the British International Open Taekwondo Championships held in Manchester at the beginning of November, Lesley Jackson speaks to Gary Hall, the Performance Director at Sport Taekwondo UK.

There is nothing as positive happening in martial arts at the moment than the British taekwondo squad and their support team, Sport Taekwondo UK. The man at the helm of such phenomenal progress is performance director Gary Hall and there are none more positive than he. During my visit to the British Open International Taekwondo championships at Manchester early in November, I also had the chance to have a chat with Gary to ask him about what his role entailed and how British taekwondo is progressing as we are looking towards London and that significant number, 2012.

“One of the major steps would be to get taekwondo onto the school curriculum; there are already two very good schemes, one in Hampshire that is doing really well and in the Greater Manchester region as well. Nearly two hundred schools have approached us about getting involved with getting taekwondo onto the curriculum with a scheme called ‘Passport to Sport.’ - Gary Hall

First of all came the immediate question of how Gary thought the day’s events had been going, particularly as it had been confirmed that this event was to be graded an ‘A’ list category tournament whereby players could gain world and European ranking by the ETU (European Taekwondo Union). “I think that in terms of being an event, it has always been the strategy to get a world class event up and running for the sport. We have had the ETU president and the secretary general who really want to support it next time round. So it’s been a really good outcome for the first event, there’s been some really good individual matches. I’m looking forward to seeing the British players against the Iranians and the Brits against the Koreans, both of whom are two world class teams and as we are at Gary Hall - Performance Director.jpg the end of the season. All of the guys are in good sharp form so that’s good to see.”

Performance All Round

For anyone wondering what a performance director in taekwondo is, Gary explains what his job entails, “The British Taekwondo Control Board, which is the governing body for British Olympic taekwondo, has a business unit called Sport Taekwondo UK and it is purely responsible for elite level performance and development of the sports side of taekwondo. We received the lottery funding that comes to support the Olympic team; my job is to co-ordinate the whole sciences connected to taekwondo, the medicines, the coaches and drive to elite performance and deliver results.” Another part of Gary’s role, alongside the coaches is to keep an eye out for up-coming talent; the qualities he looks for being, “attitude and professionalism are always key as well as natural speed, natural flexibility and agility. What is fundamental though is their attitude, approach and professionalism. We then put around them the best support mechanism in the world; the coaches, the science and the support team is world class and that has already started to pay dividends. If you look at where we are as a nation this year in the junior rankings we came from the bottom 50 and now we are fourth; in the Europeans we finished with the number one junior team in Europe and that’s pretty synonymous. We have the number one junior male team in Europe and number two overall and that has come in the last three years so if you look at that level of ability at the juniors now by 2012, it should be really exciting.”

As well as keeping an eye out at all at the regional, national and international events for new talent, Gary is keen to encourage taekwondo at a more grass roots level to encourage the volume of participants, thus widening the net for potential elite players. “One of the major steps would be to get taekwondo onto the school curriculum; there are already two very good schemes, one in Hampshire that is doing really well and in the Greater Manchester region as well. Nearly two hundred schools have approached us about getting involved with getting taekwondo onto the curriculum with a scheme called ‘Passport to Sport.’ I think if you can get it into schools as part of the curriculum it does offer something different to football, rugby and cricket. In Korea taekwondo has been established in the schools for years. It has been a bit reluctant up until recently because the marketing and advertising of the sport has not been particularly good over the last four years but since we started to get it right before Beijing and getting good people involved in the national governing body, things have started to happen.

I think you can train the teachers to teach taekwondo on a basic level and if the students show some real promise and a real will to do well, then they will move into the clubs. The school to club link is going to be very important but I think the proposal that we have just put in for Sport England involved training coaches, who can also go in and teach the other aspects of sport development as well as taekwondo will be a real development.”

2012 – The Excitement and the Challenges

Leading up to London 2012, Gary comments on the challenges that face the British squad and the support team behind them. “The challenges will be in the next month to two months when they decide the funding for the next four years. If it does come out that it is not as positive as it might be then that will be a test for the team. I think the other challenge is development and grass roots. There are a lot of really good children out there, we have got a lot of good cadets that go into the clubs and sometimes the martial arts world is not as structured and as professional as it could be. What we have already started to do is work at a lower point and we are already approaching Sport England to get another layer of funding at the development level so we can target potential elite players at an earlier age. I think the challenges are going to be to steal the legacy from Beijing and the legacy from 2012 and to ensure there are strategies in place to take on the benefits of what extra exposure we get. It is going to come down to the instructors and the development of coaches in the future. So instead of just getting your black belt and then you are off to become a coach, it is to put in a formal coaching structure and development so that we have a world class coaching system as well as world class training system for the athletes.”

	Sarah Stevenson Lesley Jackson catches up with Britain’s first taekwondo Olympic medallist, Sarah Stevenson. Originally of the Doncaster All Stars, she now trains full time with the national team at the Feat Factory in Manchester. Lesley finds out about life after Beijing and that dramatic day in August.

However, there is a lot to look forward for British taekwondo in the next few years. “We have a really good talent core at the moment and more exciting than that is that we have been getting investment at the right age. We have one junior world and junior European champion; we have got a junior silver medallist and another in the last eight in the world championships so the quality at that level has been really good. We are very excited about 2012 and we have set ourselves a very high level goal. I’m not going to declare what that is yet but that will be announced in the next six months when we know exactly what funding we will be getting leading up to the next Olympics but in terms of the team and the talent that we have it is going to be a very exciting four years.”

To find out more about British Olympic Taekwondo, visit the British Taekwondo Control Board’s website on: http://www.britishtaekwondo.org.uk/

Thank you for your time Gary, we at Martial Edge are in no doubt about the dedication, innovation and professionalism at Sport Taekwondo UK and cannot wait to see the results. Roll on 2012!

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