摘要：OBJECTIVE: Taekwondo,an ancient Korean martial art based mainly on the use of football techniques,became an official Olympic discipline in the 2000 Sydney edition. Its rapid spread in the immediate post-war period is mainly due to the continuous changes in the rules of the competition of combat (kyorugi),characterized by two mail goals from its origins: the safeguard of the competitors' safety on the one hand,and the search for the increasingly objective formula for assigning scores on the other. Recently,we have witnessed the introduction of protection kits equipped with electronic sensors,which almost completely exclude the interpretation of the score and human error. Moreover,it is clear that these variations and changes in the rules have substantially changed the entire performance model,and consequently the morphology of the typical combat athlete. METHODS: The research was carried out by collecting and analyzing the heights of the athletes who took part in the Olympics,from 2000 Sydney Olympics until 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. All 142 athletes who made it to the Olympic podium (gold,silver and bronze medals),all aged between 18 and 35 years (senior categories),divided into 71 male and 71 female athletes,and 8 weight categories ( -58 kg,-67 kg,-80 kg,+80 kg for male athletes and -49 kg,-57 kg,-67 kg and +67 kg for female athletes) were taken into consideration. The working assumption was to verify that the average height of the decorated athletes increased,edition after edition,favoring the biomechanical advantage driven by longer lower limbs (longer reach). RESULTS: The trends obtained from the comparison of average heights,both in the male and female field,confirm with a good approximation that the average heights of the athletes have been increasing Olympics after Olympics,starting from 2008 Beijing edition. CONCLUSIONS: As far as the conclusions are concerned,the initial hypothesis was clearly confirmed;the average height increased considerably,bringing a significant advantage in terms of biomechanical extension/reach for the lower limbs.
