DUSHANBE, December 6, Asia-Plus - Taekwondo-powered Tajikistan will participate in the 14 ^th International Taekwon-Do (ITF) Tournament “Peter the Great Open Europe Cup” that will be held in St. Petersburg from December 9 to December 10. 

Sportsmen from more than 20 countries are expected to compete for the Cup.  Until the recent time, participation of Tajikistan in this tournament was under the question for financial reasons said in an interview with Asia-Plus.  

To successfully participate in the tournament Tajik team should present 17 athletes, seven male and seven female athletes, and US$10,000 are needed for participation of the Tajik team in this tournament.

 “We have managed to collect 10,000 U.S. dollars with every little helps,” said Mirsaid Yahyoyev, the president of Tajikistan’s Taekwon-Do (ITF) Federation, “Parents of sportsmen and our friends have helped us.”  

“Tajikistan’s team participated in this tournament six times and it won the main cup twice, in 1992 and 2000, while in other competitions it won small cups,” Yahyoyev said. 

The International Taekwon-Do “Cup of Peter the Great” tournament has been hosted annually since 1990, and the tournament has been held as the Open Europe Cup since 1996.

The International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) was founded in 1966 by Major-General Choi Hong Hi six years before his exile from South Korea in 1972.  The ITF is basically an extention of the Oh Do Kwan of the late 1960''s.  His first visit of good will to North Korea was in 1980, when he introduced Taekwon-Do there.  Being a private Canadian Business Corporation for most of it''s existance, it has claimed it is one of the two major international Taekwon-Do organizations, the other being the public Olympic International Federation called World Taekwondo Federation or WTF.