The World Wushu Championships (WWC) is an international sports championship hosted by the International Wushu Federation (IWUF) for the sports of wushu taolu and sanda (sanshou).[1] It has been held biennially since 1991 and is the pinnacle event of the IWUF. The World Wushu Championships also coincides with the IWUF Congress as well as with various committee meetings.[1] This competition additionally serves as the qualification event for the Taolu World Cup and the Sanda World Cup.
Starting in 1985, the Chinese Wushu Association began to host the International Invitational Wushu Championships as a ways of standardizing the sport of wushu on a global scale.[2] After the formation of the IWUF at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing,[3] the 1991 World Wushu Championships were quickly organized to be held in the same city. With the desire of reaching a wider global audience and to achieve recognition by the International Olympic Committee, the 3rd and 4th world championships were organized in the United States and Italy, the first major international wushu competitions outside of Asia.[4] At the 6th WWC in 2001, the competition administered doping tests for the first time.[5] In 2007, the 9th WWC served as the qualification of the 2008 Beijing Wushu Tournament.[6] The same competition along with the 12th and 15th WWCs served as qualification for Wushu at the World Games.The 16th WWC was rescheduled from 2021 to 2023 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.[7]
Addition of events
The 1st WWC consisted of changquan, daoshu, jianshu, gunshu, qiangshu, nanquan, taijiquan, and men's sanda (originally called sanshou). Starting in 1993 with the 2nd WWC, the IWUF compulsory routines were to be used in taolu competition. In 1999, taijijian, nandao, and nangun were added. That same year, the second set of compulsory routines were approved, and thus in the 6th WWC in 2001, the old and new compulsory routine events were held simultaneously. During the next rendition in 2003, duilian and women's sanda were added. Then in 2005 with the rules revision and new scoring system, compulsory routines were discontinued. The following rendition in 2007 introduced incidental music for taijiquan and taijijian events.
In 2013 after the ratification of the third set of compulsory routines, additional events for compulsory changquan, nanquan, and taijiquan were held at the WWC that year as well as in 2015. The 2015 WWC also introduced traditional events: men's xingyiquan and dadao, and women's baguazhang and shuangjian. These traditional events would reappear at the 14th and 15th WWCs though men's dadao was replaced with shuangdao. Also in the 15th WWC in 2019, the competition consisted of a creative group-set (jiti) event with certified and celebrity judges as a demonstration event. The 16th WWC will also consist of a demonstration event.
Beijing, China
Japan
Soviet Union
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Russia
Hong Kong
Baltimore, United States
Russia
Rome, Italy
Hong Kong
Vietnam
Yerevan, Armenia
South Korea
Macau
Toronto, Canada
Iran
Ankara, Turkey
Jakarta, Indonesia
Brazil
Philippines
