World Wushu Championships

The 1990 and 1998 IWUF Rules for Taolu Competition were largely based of the Chinese Wushu Association rules which governed wushu competitions for decades. The system of judging in these rulesets were used at the World Wushu Championships from 1991 to 2003.

After the 2003 World Wushu Championships, the IWUF released a major revision to the taolu rules which added the degree of difficulty requirement. This system of judging has been used since 2005 at the World Wushu Championships and have been revised in 2005 and 2019.

The current Sanda rules were last revised in 2017.

The 1999 World Wushu Championships introduced Taijijian, Nandao, and Nangun events. These events were originally not part of the IWUF first set of compuslory routines but are now generally accepted as being part of that set.

The IWUF second set of compulsory routines were implemented as additional events in the 2001 World Wushu Championships alongside events for the first compulsory routines.

In the 2003 World Wushu Championships, all athletes were required to compete with the IWUF second set of compulsory routines. Women's sanshou and women's duilian was also introduced at this competition.

As a result of the major rule changes of 2005, compulsory routines were discontinued at the World Wushu Championships and athletes had to compete with optional routines with fist and weapon events being judged with degree of difficulty.

Incidental music was adopted for the first time for the Taijiquan and Taijijian events at the 2007 World Wushu Championships

The Changquan, Nanquan, and Taijiquan routines from the IWUF third set of compulsory routines were implemented in 2013 and 2015 as additional events.

Men's dadao, men's xingyiquan, women's shuangjian, and women's baguazhang were also implemented in 2015. In 2017 and 2019, the same additional events reappeared but men's dadao was swapped with the men's shuangdao event.

The degree of difficulty requirement for long weapon was added leading up to the 2017 World Wushu Championships.

2019 implemented a creative group-set (Jiti) event with certified and celebrity judges. The official judges graded performances out of a total of 10.000 according to regular IWUF judging procedures and celebrity judges gave a score out of 10.000 based on personal preference.

2021 is scheduled for the taiji fan (Taijishan) event to debut.

The 1995 World Wushu Championships in the United States was the first time a major international Wushu competition was held outside of Asia.

The 2001 World Wushu Championships implemented doping tests for the first time. The tests registered a clean record as all of the 12 samples returned with no positive results.[2]

More than 1000 martial artists from 89 countries took part in the 2007 World Wushu Championships in Beijing just one year before the summer Olympic Games took place in People's Republic of China.

• The Soviet Union is considered as a separate entity in the table above.
• Medals from the jiti or groupset event from the 2019 World Wushu Championships are not included above.
• Stripped medals are taken into account in the table above.

An elite-level international competition exclusively for Sanda athletes. Qualification is based on the results of the previous year's World Wushu Championships.

Edition	Year	Host City, Country[5]
1	2002	Shanghai, China
2	2004	Guanzhou, China
3	2006	Xi'an, China
4	2008	Harbin, China
5	2010	Chongqing, China
6	2012	Wuyishan, China
7	2014	Jakarta, Indonesia
8	2016	Xi'an, China
9	2018	Hangzhou, China
10	2021	Melbourne, Australia

This competition is for the dozens of non-standard wushu events which include a variety of traditional styles. There are several different age groups in each event and this competition brings in the most international competitors out of all IWUF events. In 2004 and 2006, this competition was known as the World Traditional Wushu Festival and was known as the World Traditional Wushu Championships until 2014. Official IWUF judging procedures for traditional events was last revised in 2019.

Edition	Year	Host City, Country[6]
1	2004	Zhengzhou, China
2	2006	Dengfeng, China
3	2008	Shiyan, China
4	2010	Shiyan, China
5	2012	Huangshan, China
6	2014	Chizhou, China
7	2017	Emeishan, China
8	2019	Emeishan, China
9	2021	Emeishan, China

An international competition exclusively for Taijiquan athletes which features optional and compulsory events in several different styles of Taijiquan.

Edition	Year	Host City, Country[5]
1	2014	Dujiangyan, China
2	2016	Warsaw, Poland
3	2018	Burgas, Bulgaria
4	2021	Catania, Italy

An elite-level international competition exclusively for taolu athletes. Qualification is based on placing in the top-eight in an event at the World Wushu Championships of the previous year.

Edition	Year	Host City, Country[5]
1	2016	Fuzhou, China
2	2018	Yangon, Myanmar
3	2022	Tokyo, Japan