A taekwon-do tournament is a long chain of small jobs: categories, entries, fees, the draw, a ring schedule, judges, results and medals. Most problems on the day start weeks earlier, with a wrong category or an entry nobody checked. This guide walks through the chain in the order it happens, with what to prepare at each step.
1. Set up the event and its categories
Start with the facts every coach will ask about: dates, venue and address, the entry deadline, and whether the event is open to any club or by invitation only. Add the poster, because it is what people share.
Then the categories. Each event (individual sparring, individual pattern, team sparring, team pattern and so on) is split into categories by gender, age, rank (belt) and, for sparring, weight. Decide early:
- the age cut-off date (the day of the event, or a fixed date such as 1 January);
- which ranks go together, for example 10th to 7th gup, 6th to 1st gup, and black belts by dan;
- the weight classes, and when weigh-in happens;
- the format of each category: single elimination, double elimination or round robin, and whether there is a bout for third place.
On Routte the categories are built once from these rules, so a new athlete lands in the right category without anyone sorting a spreadsheet.
2. Open entries and collect fees
Coaches and team managers register their own athletes. Their accounts are free, so even a small team can enter without a subscription. Each entry takes the athlete's details once; the categories they can enter follow from age, gender, rank and weight.
Set your entry fees. Clubs pay online, and the organiser sees who has paid and who has not. Close entries on the date you announced: late changes are the main source of errors in the draw.
Before the draw, send each club its entries list (a PDF of its own athletes, numbers and categories) and ask the coach to check it. A name spelled wrong or an athlete in the wrong weight is easy to fix now and painful to fix on the mat.
3. Make the draw and publish the brackets
A fair draw keeps the strongest seeds apart and keeps club-mates from meeting in the first round. Our guide to fair bracket draws explains the rules in detail.
When the brackets are ready, publish them. Once published, every bracket is on the event's public page, where athletes and parents can follow it on their phones. Before that, only counts and club names are public.
4. Plan the rings
Assign categories to rings and set the order. Routte estimates when each category starts from the number of bouts and the bout and rest times, and keeps the estimate up to date during the day as rings run faster or slower. Publish the schedule so families know roughly when to arrive.
5. Event day
- Check-in and weigh-in. Scan each athlete's tag with a phone camera; no barcode scanner to buy.
- Call area. Athletes are called a few bouts before they fight, so rings do not wait.
- Rings. The chief judge runs the ring from a laptop or tablet; corner judges score on their own phones. See live scoring with judges on phones.
- Screens. A TV at each ring shows the score, the clock and who is up next. The same scoreboard can go on your livestream.
- Spectators. Anyone can follow every ring live on the event's page. Coaches using the Routte app can get a notification when their athlete is called.
6. Results, medals and awards
When the chief judge confirms a result, the bracket moves on by itself. When a category finishes, its podium is decided by one rule: final winner gold, final loser silver, and the third-place bout winner (or both losing semi-finalists) bronze.
The club and school medal tables build up during the day. Decide before the event how the overall champion is ranked and how ties are broken; see overall champion, medal table and tie-breaks.
After the event, results stay online. Every medallist has a medal card ready to share, which is often the post a club is proudest of.
A short checklist
- Dates, venue, deadline, open or invitation-only, poster.
- Age cut-off, rank groups, weight classes, formats.
- Entry fees and how clubs pay.
- Entries lists sent to clubs and checked.
- Draw made and published.
- Rings planned and schedule published.
- Judges registered, chief judge for each ring, a laptop or tablet per ring, a screen per ring.
- Ranking rule for the overall champion and the awards list agreed.
Routte covers each of these steps in one place. See all features or see what it costs.