A total of 367 athletes will compete at the World Para Taekwondo Grand Prix and the second World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series event of 2026 from September 4-7.

It will mark the first time a World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series event has been held in Korea.

The week will bring together 119 Para Taekwondo athletes from 27 countries, followed by 248 Kyorugi athletes from 46 nations, as well as the Taekwondo Refugee Team.

Muju represents the second stop of the 2026 Grand Prix season after the opening event held in Rome in June.

Paralympic champions headline opening day

The World Para Taekwondo Grand Prix will feature competition across all 10 K44 weight categories, with five men’s and five women’s divisions.

Nine of the 10 gold medallists from the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games are included in the field. Among them are Great Britain’s Matt Bush and Türkiye’s Mahmut Bozteke, who also claimed gold at the Roma 2026 World Para Taekwondo Grand Prix.

The competition will coincide with the annual celebration of Taekwondo Day on September 4, adding further significance to the opening of the programme.

World-class field confirmed for Grand Prix

Competition across the eight Olympic weight categories will follow from September 5-7.

Seven of the eight gold medallists from the Roma 2026 Grand Prix are entered, led by Hungary’s reigning Olympic champion Viviana Márton.

Korea’s Paris 2024 Olympic champion Yujin Kim will compete in the Women’s -57kg division alongside Brazil’s Maria Clara Pacheco, who defeated her on the way to Grand Prix gold in Rome.

The entry list also features Spain’s Juan Antonio Milan Canovas, Italy’s Olympic champion Vito Dell’Aquila, Côte d’Ivoire’s Kimi Laurene Ossin, and Russia’s Alisa Angelova and Rafail Aiukaev.

World Taekwondo’s 2025 Athletes of the Year, Belgium’s Sarah Chaâri and Brazil’s Henrique Marques Rodrigues Fernandes, will also take part alongside Wuxi 2025 world champions Luana Márton, Eunsu Seo, Abolfazl Zandi, Seif Eissa and Wafa Masghouni.

A historic first for Taekwondowon

Muju Taekwondowon has previously hosted the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships, the Grand Prix Challenge in 2022, 2023 and 2025, and the Diamond Games in 2024 and 2025.

The arrival of the Grand Prix Series further strengthens its status as one of the sport’s most important international venues.

MASTKD will also travel to Taekwondowon in December for its first International Campus in Korea, developed through a strategic partnership with the Taekwondo Promotion Foundation.

With Olympic, Paralympic and world champions on the start lists, Muju is ready for four days of world-class Taekwondo and a historic first on Korean soil.

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