Distinction in South Korea for Lee Kyu-seok, historical figure of Taekwondo
SEOUL, South Korea — A Korean media outlet honored Lee Kyu-seok with the “2025 대한민국 10대 인물상” (Top 10 People 2025) award in a publication that introduced him as Honorary Vice President of World Taekwondo and highlighted his career as an educator and key leader in the international expansion of the sport.
SEOUL, South Korea — A Korean media outlet honored Lee Kyu-seok with the “2025 대한민국 10대 인물상” (Top 10 People 2025) award in a publication that introduced him as Honorary Vice President of World Taekwondo and highlighted his career as an educator and key leader in the international expansion of the sport.
The distinction once again highlighted why Lee’s name has appeared for decades in the spaces where the structure, training, and global scope of Taekwondo have been defined: from the university level to continental leadership, with a sustained presence in the institutional ecosystem of Kukkiwon and World Taekwondo.
2025 Recognition and Public Profile
According to the report, NBC-1TV presented the award on November 24, 2025, linking it to a career of leadership and contribution to the “globalization” of Taekwondo, as well as highlighting his academic profile. The article listed educational and leadership milestones and placed him among the figures who marked an era in modern Taekwondo.
At the institutional level, World Taekwondo always kept him at the forefront of its leadership, and in 2025, the WT Council appointed him Honorary Vice President, effective upon his retirement from the presidency of the Asian Taekwondo Union (ATU) on July 24, in recognition of his long-term dedication.
Kukkiwon endorsed him as a leader with a comprehensive approach
Kukkiwon also publicly presented him as an authoritative voice on “what Taekwondo is,” beyond high competitive performance.
At a 2023 institutional event at Kukkiwon, Lee gave a special lecture entitled “Understanding Taekwondo,” in which he addressed the history, development, and differences between Taekwondo as a sport and as a martial art, with an explicit message: Taekwondo was not limited to sparring, but also included Poomsae, breaking, and other components.
Likewise, Kukkiwon also emphasized a point of huge historical importance: it attributed to Lee a leading role in the development of new Poomsaes and in the momentum that contributed to Poomsae being incorporated as a discipline in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta-Palembang.
In 2024, during the opening of the World Taekwondo Hanmadang in Mungyeong, Kukkiwon quoted Lee in a message aligned with that vision of the system: he argued that Taekwondo expanded globally “around Kukkiwon” and expressed his expectation that Hanmadang would continue to contribute to the worldwide spread of Taekwondo.
Beyond media recognition, the relevant fact is the background: Lee represented a generation of leaders who connected academia + governance + international expansion, and left his mark on both the continental organization (ATU) and the global structure of WT, with a consistent discourse on Taekwondo as a sporting and cultural phenomenon.
MAS: Media About Sport.
TKD: Taekwondo.
MASTKD: Worldwide Leader on Taekwondo Information.
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