Major General Ahmed Fouli, president of the African Taekwondo Federation and Vice-President of the World Federation, expressed his great pleasure for the high turnout from all countries of the world to participate in the fourth edition of the African Para Taekwondo Open Championship G2, G4, which will be held on 20th of February in Hurghada.

The fourth edition of the African Para Taekwondo Open Championship has attracted a record number of participants where 120 players representing 28 countries from five continents are to compete in the event.

El-Fouli explained that the main reason for this turnout is the  inclusion of the sport in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games for the first time and confirmation of its participation in2024 Paris Paralympic Games.

"After the inclusion of the para taekwondo in Tokyo 2020, all countries began to pay intention to this sport and began to participate in the important international championships in order to reap the points added to their Paralympic classification  and helping them in qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games as the African Open Championship is classified as G2, G4 by the World Federation of the game, a large number of major countries are interested in participation.” El-Fouli said.

El-Fouli added that the Championship will witness a strong competition in the presence of several champions of the game, as there will be a large number of players participating in the current World Championship in Turkey  that will participate in the African Championship.

Ten countries will represent Africa: Morocco, Senegal, Niger, Cameroon, Tunisia, Rwanda, Central Africa, Congo, Uganda and Egypt.

Twelve European countries will be represented as follows: Denmark, France, Spain, Turkey, Russia, Great Britain, Ukraine, Serbia, Italy, Croatia, Poland and Finland.

Jordan, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan are representing Asia while The United States of America and Brazil will represent both North and South America.

Al-Fouli pointed out that the championship has great attention from the State, represented by Dr. Ashraf Sobhy, Minister of Youth and Sports, in line with the country's policy of rapprochement with the African continent countries  with Egypt receiving the presidency of the African Union and the declaration of Aswan as the capital of Africa.

El-Fouli ended his statement saying that the businessmen's orientation to sponsor the African Taekwondo Union and the African Championship demonstrates a great awareness from the large companies and that contributes to the success of the championship which has great attention from the Media, he added that The Organizing Committee of the Championship is exerting great efforts to present the championship in its best form appropriate for the name of Egypt, in one of the most beautiful cities of Egypt "Hurghada".