More kicks guaranteed if you don't get thick

Some Olympic sports keep their own company. To catch a little taekwondo, you simply amble up Olympic boulevard and take a sharp right past the stadium. This path quickly gives way to a through trail that leads into about 14 miles of dense forest, which you traverse by throwing small children ahead of you for safety.

Once negotiated, you encounter a 14-foot wall that divides you from the torrents of infested waters on the other side. The taekwando centre is behind a small, brown door on the other side, which will be opened once you give the correct password to an angry looking, chain-smoking sentry. Needless to say he has, tucked in his belt, a large and gleaming sword.

Taekwando means "the way of the hand and foot" and it is therefore only reasonable that would-be fans should use plenty of both before they get to cheer on the practitioners. Bouts of fights take place in rapid succession and, given that the athletes are cloaked in several tonnes of swaddling clothes and padding, they could, conceivably, involve the same two athletes. Like all fight games, competitors are divided into weight categories, with fighters increasing in viciousness as they decrease in height.

The martial art has origins that are over 2,000 years old but it was not officially recognised as a form of self-defence until the 1950s. It is now regarded as the most effective style of unarmed self-defence in the world, with a staggering 50,000 practitioners. Judging by the carry on in this venue, you'd better not spill any of their drinks.

There is, seemingly, a philosophy behind the punches and foot kicks, an onus to practise "virtuous teachings". Such lofty ideals encourage a serious amount of bowing and hand joining and praying. Once in competition, however, the athletes are free to mock one another and laugh at their opponents' efforts and generally ham it up.

Scores are given for accurate kicks and punches to designated areas, mainly confined to the head and chest. Cheap shots lead to kyong-go, a warning penalty or the even more serious gam-jeom, a deduction penalty. Three penalties and you go.

Most of the time, it is a fairly safe bet to assume that the fighter who looks to be losing will, in fact, be destroying his opponent. In the 68kg group, world champion Hadi Saeibonehkohal was up against an Argentinian, Alejandro Hernando. Hadi was Hong (red helmet) and Al was Chung (blue helmet).

The pair spent a lot of time circling around each other edgily and staring at one another with as much contempt as possible. Just as things were getting a little boring, not to say, dizzying, some covert signal saw them lash and flail at each other, clashing like two great sheets flapping in the breeze.

Once they were separated, we would find that Hadi had landed more hits than a new Kournikova website. It all seemed a little unfair on Alejandro, who twice floored his man with a couple of kyong-go-inducing kicks to the groin.

Down eight points going into the last round, Alejandro had no choice but to invoke the old schoolyard tactic. He got thick. Uttering a series of blood-curdling howls and yelps, he launched himself at the astonished Hadi. If there had been pads either side of Hadi's head, then Daniel would have been right back in the fight but he succeeded only in executing a hapless set of fresh-air kicks.

Perhaps Alejandro was put off by the fact that his bout was in the morning. Taekwando, clearly, is a night-time sport. In fact, given all the nods and winks and halfcodes, it would be far more appealing if it were held in secret. Much better to have an underground, smoke-filled venue with baying crowds, dollars fluttering in the air and everybody screaming as in the last minutes' trading on the stock exchange.

Taekwando had been virtually ignored in Sydney until Wednesday evening when local girl Lauren Burns surprisingly won gold in the 49kg division. Since then, the sport has been elevated just above the 100-metre sprint in terms of coverage and interest. Lauren, we learned, is the child of "former rock legend Ronnie Burns".

There has to be a moral there, somewhere.