Australia's Kim Seng has been awarded the Kukkiwon ninth dan in taekwondo ©Australian Taekwondo

Australian grandmaster Kim Seng has been awarded the Kukkiwon ninth dan at World Taekwondo's headquarters in Seoul.

This was the first time that the ninth dan awarding ceremony included recipients from outside of South Korea.

Kukkiwon ninth dan represents taekwondo's highest honour, and recipients wore red ceremonial robes, while Lee Dong-sup, the President of World Taekwondo's headquarters Kukkiwon, bore the yellow robe.

It requires practitioners to embrace the five tenets of courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit.

Lee congratulated the recipients and presented framed Kukkiwon ninth dan certificates.

Kim's promotion tests were delayed by more than one year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they must include physical training before being held in-person at Kukkiwon.

Kukkiwon President Lee Dong-sup, right, presented the ninth dan certificate to Kim Seng, left ©Australian Taekwondo
Kukkiwon President Lee Dong-sup, right, presented the ninth dan certificate to Kim Seng, left ©Australian Taekwondo

Kim credited the knowledge received from grandmaster Sok Pong Kim up until his death in 1999, grandmaster Jae Young Kwak from 1999 onwards and other masters and colleagues.

He was one of 12 honoured at the award ceremony, of whom seven were from South Korea, two from Belgium and one from Australia, Canada and Ivory Coast.

Kim first began practising martial arts in Singapore in 1970.

He previously passed his ChungDo Kwan ninth dan in 2016.