Chapter 22: Sport Taekwondo

In the late 1800's in Japan, challenges and fighting were a commonplace. The new Kodokan Judo often had to defend its reputation against the older Jujitsu. The government, in an attempt to determine the best training for its police and military, sponsored many of these contests. Kodokan Judo won most of these encounters, regardless of the rules of engagement, simply because its method of training was so superior to the older styles. The sport emphasis on speed and power overwhelmed any technical inferiority of the actual techniques. The lesson was that the method of training was more important than the technique itself. As a result, Jujitsu virtually disappeared in Japan and it was replaced by Judo.

Kano was impressed by de Coubertin's modern Olympic movement and, while Judo took several decades to spread around the world and become a universal sport, Kano developed it with the idea of promoting the same "universal humanity" that de Coubertin was promoting through the modern Olympic Games. Kano later became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1906 and remained there until his death in 1938.