INSPIRE INSTITUTE OF SPORT (IIS) has announced a nationwide talent identification initiative, IIS Taekwondo’s Fighting Chance. The program aims to scout and select eight female taekwondo athletes aged 16 to 26 for a long-term, high-performance training pathway designed to prepare them for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
Applicants must hold at least a blue belt, have competed at the Indian Junior or Senior National Championships, be medically fit for a full-contact trial bout, and have no history of doping or disciplinary sanctions. IIS will also consider applications from female martial artists with substantial combat experience in other disciplines.
Initial selections will take place through two open regional trials conducted by IIS on 17-18 January in Guwahati and 24-25 January in Trivandrum.
Athletes who progress past the regional trials will attend a two-week immersive training and assessment camp at IIS, Vijayanagar. This will be followed by a two-month advanced training stint in Europe and a four-week high-performance camp in South Korea. The final eight athletes will be offered full-time IIS contracts and will receive the full suite of support under IIS’s high-performance system.
The initiative will be led by IIS high-performance director Gary Hall MBE, known for helping build Great Britain’s taekwondo high-performance framework, which produced multiple Olympic and continental medallists.
The program also brings together global experts, including Bianca Walkden (two-time Olympic medallist), Aaron Cook (European champion), Jade Jones (two-time Olympic champion), President Moon Won Jae of Korea National Sports University, and veteran Croatian coach Toni Tomas.
IIS president Manisha Malhotra said, “At IIS, we have always thought outside the box. While we are working on developing mainstream Olympic sports in the country, such opportunities should always be explored. We have already ventured into water sports, and taekwondo is up next. I am very excited and confident that this is the start of something significant for Indian sport.”
Hall added, “India has never secured a World Championship or Olympic medal in taekwondo. IIS Taekwondo’s Fighting Chance aims to identify and develop athletes who can change that outcome. In my decades of experience as a sports administrator, I have seen such programmes yield success. This is a systematic, well-mapped plan that can change the face of taekwondo in the country. My team and I have done this before, there’s no reason we can’t do it in India with its vast talent.”
