The two fighters were an unlikely matchup. One was a 5-foot-11 man from the United States. His opponent, a Japanese woman, was about a head shorter and at least 10 pounds lighter.
But in this virtual competition, they were evenly matched.
They kicked and jabbed at each other, standing 10 feet apart, their attacks connecting only through the avatars projected onto a screen behind them. But the American scored enough hits to fill his opponent’s “stun bar” — a video game staple that increases as a character takes damage — leaving her avatar temporarily unable to move. Then he delivered a flurry of kicks to pull off a narrow victory.
From the sidelines, the American team burst into cheers. “That’s the power of the stun,” said one of its coaches, Anthony Ong.
At a meet in the South Korean city of Chuncheon in July, the athletes were competing in a bout of virtual taekwondo, a gamified version of the Korean martial art that the sport’s top international body is championing as a new frontier. It will be a medal event in this year’s Asian Games, the region’s biggest sporting event, which kicks off in Japan later this month — a milestone for virtual sports as governing bodies try to engage young people who are giving up physical competition for video games.
To take part, competitors hold controllers, strap motion-tracking sensors to their chests, thighs and shins, and wear VR headsets to track their opponent’s avatar. They use the same moves as they would in traditional taekwondo, but also contend with added video-game-like elements like the health and stun bars.
Coaches and participants of virtual taekwondo extol its virtues. They say it provides a new avenue for engaging with young audiences living increasingly digital lives, and that it is safer than traditional taekwondo while requiring just as much athleticism and even more stamina. It also allows for more inclusive competitions, removing the need for traditional divisions of weight class and gender.
But some practitioners rankle at the thought of sharing a name with something they see as a glorified video game. They wonder: What is a combat sport without physical contact?
Virtual taekwondo is part of a slate of digitized versions of traditional sports — including virtual cycling and table tennis — that represent an acceptable middle ground for sporting bodies that view video games with disdain but are also worried about losing a generation of young people to them, according to Andy Miah, an expert in e-sports and the Olympic Games at the University of Salford in Britain.
However, he said, they occupy a “strange limbo world” with neither the established fan bases of popular video games nor a guaranteed buy-in from existing athletes.
The challenge was apparent at the taekwondo meet in Chuncheon, where some competitors and coaches expressed skepticism about the virtual contest. Of around 4,000 attendees from dozens of countries, about 100 were involved in virtual bouts.
Safwan Khalil, 40, who represented Australia in taekwondo at three Olympic Games, said he saw little resemblance to the sport. “It’s not technical or strategic at all,” he said. “It’s literally just, kick as much as you can.”
Anne Marie Smith, a coach and manager for an Australian team at the Chuncheon event, was similarly unimpressed. “It’s not real sparring. It’s not anywhere close,” she said, adding that she worried that treating virtual taekwondo as a serious competitive event would degrade the traditional version’s reputation.
But Chungwon Choue, who heads World Taekwondo, the global governing body, said in an email that the virtual event was not meant to replace traditional taekwondo. Instead, he said, it “preserves the core techniques, values and spirit of Taekwondo while harnessing technology to create a new and distinct competitive experience.”
“We do not see any reason why the two cannot coexist and actually mutually benefit each other,” he said, adding that the virtual competition offered “meaningful advantages in terms of safety and accessibility.”
World Taekwondo says virtual taekwondo has strong participation in Asia and is growing in North America and Europe. But some Korean coaches at the tournament said they had not heard of virtual taekwondo until the announcement that it would be included in the Asian Games.
Competitors approach virtual and traditional taekwondo differently. Virtual ones favor front kicks over side kicks because they tend to yield better strikes and scores. Unlike physical sparring, in which opponents often circle and size each other up before delivering a flurry of blows, virtual competitors jump and kick more or less nonstop, coaches and athletes said in interviews. That constant motion requires a higher level of stamina than traditional matches, said Mr. Ong, the American coach for the virtual taekwondo team that represented the United States at the Chuncheon tournament.
Ayan Anantharaman, 13, one of the American competitors, said he preferred the faster pace of the virtual contest. It also appealed to him as a fan of video games, he said, adding that “it’s not physical based and you can’t get hurt.”
Certain technological teething problems were evident in Chuncheon. Some matches had to be paused because of calibration issues or because the sensors had slipped. During Ayan’s match, he spent long minutes waiting for staff to recalibrate his leg straps, which were tilting his avatar’s movements sideways.
He lost his match in part because he accidentally dropped his controller and twice stepped out of bounds, misjudging the difference between the edges of the virtual arena and the physical one. But he was undeterred.
“In the future, I want to win a medal,” he said.
Virtual competition is just the latest update over decades of change for taekwondo.
South Korea developed it into a cohesive discipline in the 1950s, and in subsequent decades, vied to make it an Olympic event. That broadened taekwondo from a martial art, about developing the self, into a sport focused on competition against others. (Taekwondo first appeared as a medal sport at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.)
“World Taekwondo seems to be willing to morph taekwondo into whatever is going to bring more people into the sport,” said John Johnson, a former assistant professor in the Department of Taekwondo at Keimyung University in South Korea who has spent nearly 40 years studying Korean martial arts.
Fighters and experts have questioned some of the changes, such as the introduction of beach taekwondo, in which competitors can wear tank tops or short sleeves and men can compete shirtless — an event they worry could diminish the sport’s image.
Mr. Johnson said he had similar concerns about virtual taekwondo. Still, he added, he would not “say this is the downfall of taekwondo, because for decades, it has been able to change.”
The American team that competed in Chuncheon has its sights set on that evolution. They ended the tournament with four medals: one gold, two silvers and one bronze, across four divisions. Of the eight athletes at the competition, most wanted to turn professional with virtual taekwondo, Mr. Ong said.
“We’re dead serious about this,” he said. “This is what we’re going to master.”
Lee Jiyoun contributed reporting.
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