Special report:   2008 Olympic Games 
    BOGOTA, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- Former world taekwondo champions Angel Valodia, from Cuba, and brother and sister Mark and Diana Lopez, from the U.S., are among the athletes that will participate in the Pan American championship, to be held in Cali, as a qualifier to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, informed Colombia's taekwondo federation on Friday.

    The federation's President Jorge Luis Avendano told Xinhua that the tournament, which will take place on the weekend in Cali, western Colombia, will rely on the participation of other world and Pan Am champions, among other high-level fighters, and will classify 24 athletes, four in each division.

    According to Avendano, that will be the last opportunity for taekwondo fighters to classify for the Beijing Olympics, following the latest world championship, hosted in Manchester, U.K.

    The tournament will have four competitors from each country, two males and two females, who will compete in accord with the direct elimination system, and the winners will keep their classification chances.

    Colombia will be represented in the competition by Jose Oliveros (under 58 kilograms), Wilson Martinez (under 68 kilograms), Glagys Mora (under 47 kilograms) and Doris Patino (under 57 kilograms), the federation president confirmed.

    Avendano added that he expects his country to assure two places in the Beijing Games. For the 2004 Athens Olympics, Colombia assured three places in the taekwondo events.

    According to the Colombian Sports Institute (Coldeportes), apart from Valodia, the Pan Am championship will have another Cuban, Mirna Eechavarria, champion of the 2000 Sydney Olympics and several times world champion, who sees himself as the renovation of taekwondo in Cuba.

    The championship will be hosted in the Alcides Nieto Patino Velodrome in Cali, Colombia's third biggest city, and athletes from 42 countries are expected to take part in it.