Benidorm, Saturday 3 October 2026
The ITF World Cup 2026 came to a close on Saturday with the team events in all eleven rings and the last Special Technique categories in Ring 3. Thirty more categories were decided on the final day, bringing the total to 218, and Argentina finished the week at the top of the medal table with 35 gold, 41 silver and 68 bronze medals.
A clean sweep for the All-Ukrainian Taekwon-Do Union
The All-Ukrainian Taekwon-Do Union won all four junior black belt team sparring titles: Pre-Junior Dan Male and Female and Junior Dan Male and Female. In the biggest of them, Junior Team Male Dan Sparring with 30 teams, they beat ITF Uzbekistan in the final. Ukraine also took the Pre-Junior Gup Team Male title through Ukrainian Martial Arts Center and the Pre-Junior Gup Team Female title through the Ukrainian Solovey Team.
Senior team finals
Asoc. Española TKD-ITF won the Adult Team Male Sparring ahead of the Argentinian club “GM Gomez de Olivera”, with Houssame Hatifi Leghraoui and Bahaa Talhaoui Kabil adding a team title to the individual golds they won on Friday. The Argentinian club “Bordiez Marcelo” took the Adult Team Female Sparring ahead of Swedish Frölunda TKD. In the senior team patterns, Argentinian “Esponda Sergio” won the men’s title and Norway’s Bergen TKD won the women’s.
Junior team patterns
AETA won two titles, Pre-Junior Team Female Dan Patterns and Junior Team Male Gup Patterns. Trondheim TKD won Junior Team Male Dan Patterns, Argentinian’s club “Bustamante Matias” won Junior Team Female Dan Patterns, ITF Uzbekistan won Pre-Junior Team Male Gup Patterns, Impact Stockholm TKD won Pre-Junior Team Female Gup Patterns and “GM Gomez de Olivera” won Pre-Junior Team Male Dan Patterns.
Special Technique
Pre-Junior Female Special Technique, with 53 competitors the largest individual field of the day, needed five rounds of tie-breaks. Ioana Ristea of ACS Red Tigers – Calan won it, Ildikó Császár of Csopaki Hullámtörők TKD Klub (Hungary) took silver and Paulina Żurawska of the Polish Taekwon-Do Association took bronze. Piotr Pełka of Akademia Wojownika won Senior (36–45 years) Male Dan after two tie-breaks, Tirsa van der Wal of ITF Netherlands won Junior Female Gup, and Ilkka Kuusela of Helsingin Yliopiston Taekwon-Do won the Veteran Male Gup, his second gold of the week.
Ireland’s veterans
The Irish Taekwon-Do Association won three team titles on Saturday and the Masters team of Peter McNeill, Mark Donnelly, Brian Cunningham, Michael Keane, Gerard Gosson and Daragh Jones won two of them. With 35 medals, 12 of them gold, the club won more medals than any other at the World Cup. In the official Best Club ranking, which leaves out medals from categories with three or fewer entries, Solovey Team of Ukraine finished first with 11 golds, ahead of the Irish Taekwon-Do Association with 9 and Bordiez Marcelo with 8.
Final medal table by Club
The ITF World Cup is a club event and the 10 most successful clubs out of all 259 registered clubsare listed below.
| Club | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| Irish Taekwon-Do Association | Ireland | 12 | 8 | 15 | 35 |
| Solovey Team | Ukraine | 11 | 8 | 6 | 25 |
| Bordiez Marcelo | Argentina | 8 | 10 | 5 | 23 |
| All-Ukrainian Taekwon-Do Union | Ukraine | 8 | 4 | 8 | 20 |
| FATI | Argentina | 7 | 4 | 9 | 20 |
| AETA | England | 6 | 4 | 13 | 23 |
| ITF Uzbekistan | Uzbekistan | 5 | 4 | 8 | 17 |
| Association Colombiana de Taekwon-Do | Colombia | 5 | 4 | 6 | 15 |
| Polish Taekwon-Do Association | Poland | 4 | 10 | 16 | 30 |
| Taekwon-Do ITF Israeli Center | Israel | 4 | 3 | 7 | 14 |
Medal table by golds, then silvers, then bronzes. Team medals count once.
Final medal table by Country
Every club belongs to a country. Adding up the medals by all clubs of a country the ranking is the following:
| # | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | 🇦🇷 Argentina | 35 | 41 | 68 | 144 |
| 2 | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 22 | 16 | 17 | 55 |
| 3 | 🇮🇪 Ireland | 18 | 16 | 32 | 66 |
| 4 | 🏴 England | 18 | 14 | 37 | 69 |
| 5 | 🇵🇱 Poland | 12 | 15 | 23 | 50 |
Medal table by golds, then silvers, then bronzes. Team medals count once.
A more detailled statistcal analysis will follow soon.
The World Cup in numbers
- Categories decided: 218, including 30 on the final day.
- Medals awarded: 818, to 45 of the 57 countries and delegations and to 182 clubs. Athletes from 38 countries won gold.
- Most medals: Argentina with 144, ahead of England with 69 and Ireland with 66.
- Most efficient country: Hungary, with 6 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze medals from 29 athletes.
- Biggest categories of the day: Pre-Junior Female Special Technique with 53 competitors, and Junior Team Male Sparring Dan with 30 teams.
World Cup Gala: Four Title Fights, a New World Record and a Night of Thanks in Benidorm
