Rupa Bayor, a Taekwondo athlete from Arunachal Pradesh, has made history by becoming the first Indian to break into the top 10 of the World Poomsae Rankings. Currently occupying the ninth spot in the global rankings, Rupa’s meteoric rise began in 2021 when she was ranked 123rd. She steadily improved her ranking, reaching 42nd in 2022 and 12th in 2023.
This remarkable achievement marks a significant milestone for Indian Taekwondo, as Rupa is the first athlete from the country to achieve this feat in any format of the sport. She also holds the top spot in Asia, solidifying her position as one of the continent’s leading Taekwondo athletes. Rupa moved past Japan’s Yuiko Niwa, Belgium’s Axelle Bonnez, and Costa Rica’s Maria Paula Salas to ascend three ranks and settle into the ninth position in the newly released rankings.
Rupa won a bronze medal in the 8th Asian Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Danang, Vietnam, in April. She also secured a silver medal in the U30 Poomsae event at the Australian Open in Brisbane last month.
The World Poomsae Rankings is topped by Denmark’s Eva Sandersen with 337.30 points. Poomsae is a non-combative form of Taekwondo in which competitors perform a sequence of techniques linked together into a pattern of moves, similar to gymnastics routines, to be evaluated by a panel of judges. This format is currently a non-Olympic category that features in the Asian Games. Hailing from Arunachal Pradesh, Rupa spends most of her time at the Ino-Korean Taekwondo Academy in Mumbai.