Oumaima El Bouchti (-49 kg) didn’t qualify directly through the World Rankings. She was left out of the National Team’s squad at the 2024 African Taekwondo Olympic Qualification Tournament, as the coaches decided to give chance Nada Laaraj (-57 kg) and  Fatima-Ezzahra Aboufaras (+67), and Aboufaras qualified for Paris 2024. 

Later the World Taekwondo (WT) decided not to allocate the -49 kg quota to Australia, citing an insufficient number of competitors in the division at the Oceania Continental Qualifiers in Honiara, Solomon Islands. The Olympic berth won by Saffron Tambyrajah was given to El Bouchti, who was in sixth place of the non-olympic 53 kg category.

The decision was challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) by Korean taekwondo athlete Mi-Reu Kang, who was 8th in the Olympic rankings of -49 kg category in December 2023. The Korean delegation disputed El Bouchti’s right to qualify after a change in weight category, Morocco World News reports.

“Oumaima El Bouchiti changed her weight category after the closure of the Olympic qualification list, where she held the eighth global rank, surpassing her Korean counterpart,” Driss El Hilali, President of the Royal Moroccan Taekwondo Federation, said in an interview with Morocco’s official press agency. 

Eventually the decision of WT was upheld by CAS, and Morocco will now have two Taekwondo athletes in the Taekwondo Women’s competition at the Paris 2024 Olympics.