Members meet on May 6 & 7 to test and evaluate two new companies

By Kiarash Bahri

Daedo International -a Spanish based company- and KPNP -a Korean based Company- took part in the Electronic Body Protector (EBP) test held in Lausanne, Switzerland by WTF to evaluate and analyze Electronic Body Protectors produced by these companies.

The Ad-hoc committee comprised of an IOC member, WTF Chairmen of the Technical and Games Committees, an electronic engineer and two other Taekwondo experts that was established by WTF President, Dr. Chungwon Choue, in 2008 to evaluate the use of EBPs in WTF Championships.

The agenda for the committee's meeting that was held in a meeting room at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland was to test and evaluate two new companies' products and see the new "Instant Review Reply" introduced by Dart fish -A company currently covering WTF sanctioned events for Internet T.V. - in action during demonstration matches with the help of French and Swiss players.

In this test both companies showed they had made good strides toward producing an Electronic Body Protector according to WTF specifications and standards.

Addidas, the giant sports company that was also suppose to take part in this test decided to cancel out in the last minute due to some reasons that was explained in a letter to WTF later.

It is worth mentioning that Addidas had participated and failed several previous tests done at KISS institute of Korea between 2005 and 2009.

After close observation and evaluation of the new EBPs the Ad-hoc committee came together again on May 7^th and after a four hour discussions made its recommendations to the President of the WTF.

At the end of the meeting it was decided to reconvene on May 12 during WTF World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan for further evaluation and the use of the Electronic Body Protectors in WTF World Championship in Denmark.