Virtual taekwondo is on the rise as it makes its debut at Asian Games

When Vietnamese athlete Nguyen Thanh Hien Linh stepped into her first virtual taekwondo competition in Singapore in 2024, she had little idea what she was doing.“I was just kicking into the air,” recalled the 21-year-old. Despite her background as an elite national taekwondo champion, she struggled in the virtual arena with no clue on strategy, skills or how the technology worked.Two years later, she won a gold medal at a recent virtual taekwondo competition in Malaysia and was part of a growing community of the gamified combat sport across Southeast Asia.Once unfamiliar and experimenta…READ FULL ARTICLE