Relationship between attack and pause in world Taekwondo championship contests: effects of gender and weight category

The aim of this study was to compare between weight and gender categories the attack and pause times during the 2007 Taekwondo World Championship. A total of 88 rounds (47 male and 41 female contests) were analyzed. There was no difference in attack/balancing times ratio between genders (0.13 ± 0.06 vs 0.13 ± 0.06, P > 0.05). The attack number was significantly higher in round 3 than in round 1 for all categories and genders. The balancing time was lower during the round 3 than round 1 for low-weight male and high-weight female categories. The delta of change from round 1 to 3 (round 3 - round 1) for attack time and attack/balancing times ratio were lower in male than female. Female seems to intensify more the combat in the last round than male, and this seems be related to the weight division.