TAEKWONDO made its first appearance as a demonstration sport at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. It was a demonstration again four years later and at Sydney in 2000 it became a full medal sport for the first time.

Britain has been represented in all four competitions up to and including 2012. Sarah Stevenson won Britain's first medal when she won bronze in the women's heavyweight division in 2008.

In 2012 they won another bronze, courtesy of Lutalo Muhammad in the men's middleweight class but they went better and won their first and only gold medal to date thanks to Jade Jones who became the women's lightweight champion.

British Gold Medallist:

JONES, Jade Louise
Born: 21 March 1993, Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, Wales
Olympics competed in: 1 (2012)
Olympic medals: 2012 Gold - Women's featherweight (57kg)

Jade Jones reached the first pinnacle of her career when she won the 56kg gold medal at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore but her career went from strength-to-strength after that as she first won the silver medal at the world championships (57kg) in 2011 and then came her tremendous triumph at the 2012 Olympics as she became Britain's first and only Taekwondo gold medallist. In the semi-final she beat the top seed Tseng Li-Cheng from Chinese Taipei.

Known as 'The Head Hunter' because she prefers to attempt to score points from attacking her opponent's head instead of body, Jade was Britain's youngest gold medal winner at London 2012 at the age of 19.

She took up the sport at the age of eight when her grandfather took her to a local club to learn self defence. When she showed signs of being a an exponent of the art, her granddad used to drive her the two hour round trip from her Welsh home to Manchester four times a week so she could be coached professionally. In 2010 she joined the GB Taekwondo Academy and was coached by Britain's first Taekwondo medallist Sarah Stevenson.

Jones was awarded the MBE in the 2013 New Year's Honours lists for her services to her sport.

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