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What to know about karate at the Tokyo Olympics

France's Alexandra Feracci is among the competitors in the Olympic karate competition. (Pascal Pochard-Casabianca/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Matt Bonesteel
July 18, 2021|Updated July 19, 2021 at 10:12 a.m. EDT

Karate will be an Olympic sport for the first time in Tokyo this year. It might be the last: Japanese Olympic organizers added it to the list of sports at this year’s Games under new IOC guidelines that allow organizing committees of each Olympics to include provisional new events for the Games they host. Karate will not be a competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and its status for Los Angeles in 2028 has yet to be determined.

So this might be your last chance to see the world’s top karatekas practice their craft on the world’s biggest athletic stage. Here’s what you need to know about karate at the Tokyo Olympics.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How does the Olympic kata competition work?
How does the Olympic kumite competition work?
Where will the Olympic karate competitions take place?
What is the schedule of Olympic karate events?
Who are the top American hopefuls in Olympic karate?
Who are the top international hopefuls in Olympic karate?
How does the Olympic kata competition work?
Athletes will compete in two karate competitions in Tokyo: kata and kumite.

In kata, athletes demonstrate offensive and defensive moves against a virtual opponent. In each demonstration, athletes must choose from one of 102 kata movements that are recognized by the World Karate Federation, and they are not allowed to perform the same kata twice in one tournament.

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Points are awarded by a panel of seven judges for stance, technique, transitional movement, timing, correct breathing, focus and conformance (70 percent of the score) and strength, speed and balance (30 percent of the score). The two highest and two lowest scores garnered by each performance are thrown out, and the remaining three scores are added up.

All athletes compete in the same weight class in kata, so only one set of medals will be awarded in men’s and women’s kata.


How does the Olympic kumite competition work?
In kumite, two athletes square off on an 8x8-meter mat. Matches end either after three minutes or when one of the competitors has amassed eight more points than their opponent, whichever comes first. Points are awarded for straight punches delivered to the body or face (one point), middle kicks delivered to the body (two points) and high kicks delivered to the head or punches delivered on an opponent who has been taken to the ground via sweep or takedown (three points).



If three minutes elapse, the competitor with the most points wins. In the event of a tie, whoever scored the first point is declared the winner. Scoreless draws are broken by a panel of five judges.


Medals will be awarded to different weight classes in kumite: under 67, under 75 and over 75 kilograms for men; and under 55, under 61 and over 61 kilograms for women.

Where will the Olympic karate competitions take place?
The karate events will be held at the Nippon Budokan, which was originally built to host the judo competition at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and will again host judo this year. Yes, it’s the same arena where Cheap Trick’s 1978 live-album colossus “Cheap Trick at Budokan” was recorded.

What is the schedule of Olympic karate events?
Aug. 4-5

Women’s kata, women’s kumite (under 55 kg), men’s kumite (under 67 kg)

Aug. 5-6

Men’s kata, women’s kumite (under 61 kg), men’s kumite (under 75 kg)

Aug. 6-7

Women’s kumite (over 61 kg), men’s kumite (over 75 kg)

Who are the top American hopefuls in Olympic karate?
Sakura Kokumai, a native of Hawaii, is the only American woman competing in karate and is ranked seventh in the World Karate Federation’s world kata rankings. Her parents both hail from Japan, and she has family still in the country.


Sakura Kokumai competes in Paris in 2020. (Baptiste Fernandez/Icon Sport via Getty Images)
Thomas Scott (ranked sixth globally in under-75-kg kumite) and Ariel Torres Gutierrez (10th in men’s kata) are Team USA’s top chances to medal in men’s karate. Brian Irr rounds out the American karate roster in over-75-kg kumite.

Who are the top international hopefuls in Olympic karate?
The top men’s and women’s kata karatekas per the WKF rankings — Damián Quintero and Sandra Sánchez — both hail from Spain. Japan has both No. 2s (Ryo Kiyuna and Kiyou Shimizu).

In kumite, men’s medal contenders include 2018 world champion Steve Da Costa of France and Italy’s Angelo Crescenzo in the under-67-kg competition. Five-time world champion Rafael Aghayev of Azerbaijan (under 75 kg) and Turkey’s Ugur Aktas (over 75 kg) should also contend for spots on the podium. Croatia‘s Ivan Kvesic (over 75 kg) is a recent gold medalist at the world championships and European championships.

On the women’s side, Ukraine’s Anzhelika Terliuga (under 55 kg) tops the world rankings in her weight class. Serbia’s Jovana Prekovic (under 61 kg) and Azerbaijan’s Irina Zaretska (over 61 kg), both 2018 world champions, will also compete in Tokyo. China’s Yin Xiaoyan leads the world rankings in the under-61-kg weight class and finished second to Prekovic in 2018.

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Utah grandma, 83, receives karate black belt from Chuck Norris
Monday, July 26th 2021, 3:36 PM EDT
By Ashley Imlay


SALT LAKE CITY (KSL) -- Carole Taylor may be 83, but she now has a fifth-degree black belt in karate — an honor she received from Chuck Norris himself.

The Utah woman's passion for martial arts began 15 years ago at the age of 68, when she started taking her 11-year-old granddaughter to lessons.

"I thought: 'Wow, this is mental and physical. This would be a good thing for someone my age to do. ... So I asked the teacher if it would be all right if I joined the class, and so that's why I did it," she recalled.

Taylor learned karate alongside her granddaughter.

"We both got our first-degree black belts at about the same time," she said.

On Saturday, that granddaughter was there to watch Taylor show off her skills in front of dozens at Chuck Norris' annual United Fighting Arts Federation International Training Convention. For her demonstration, Taylor chose to show forms of karate including traditional hand techniques, stances, footwork, targeting, focusing and power.

She performed to the Beach Boys' song "Little Old Lady from Pasadena," because that's where she grew up. Taylor fooled the crowd by using her bow as a cane to hobble onto the center of the mat, prompting laughter and smiles from Norris and the rest of the crowd, a video of the event shows. She then straightened her back and began a display of powerful stances and fierce facial expressions. Taylor received a standing ovation from Norris and many in attendance.

Afterwards, Norris awarded her a fifth-degree black belt — an accomplishment that takes years to reach in the Chuck Norris System.

"I was so excited. I was able to bow to him, turn around, he put (a black gi) on me, I turned back around and bowed, and then he grabbed me and hugged me so hard, he actually pulled me off the ground almost … my one foot went up," Taylor said.

A gi is a traditional karate uniform. When someone reaches the fifth degree, their white top gets replaced with a black top, she explained.

"(Norris) was so kind, and he's 81, and he made some comments about that he had not been exercising all that much recently and that I had inspired him to go back and to begin to train again, and that made me feel very, very good," Taylor said.

The Layton woman also teaches karate at the dojo where she learned it. During the pandemic, she taught a student from the class at her own home because they had to social distance. Taylor had the student come to her house every day and they practiced on the patio outside, according to her daughter, Lacey Owens.

"It helps her mind to stay calm, to be able to focus on all the forms they have to learn, and that really has kept her brain fresh, I would say. It helps her to remember things, to memorize things," Owens said. "The dedication has given her something to keep going after every day."

Karate isn't the first talent Taylor has developed. She is also an actress who has appeared in plays and films, an artist and a calligrapher.

But karate has been another life experience Taylor is grateful to have found.

"It's just one of those things that makes for a more full life for me, and I absolutely love it, and it makes me feel strong, and it makes me feel confident, and it makes me feel as though I'm able to continue to learn," she said.

When the pandemic kept her home, Owens said karate gave her mother "some purpose in such a crazy time. And now, she can't test again for five years if she wants to go for her sixth degree, but she said to me, 'Why not? Why not? Might as well keep trying."

Owens said that she and the rest of Taylor's family are very proud of her.

"My mom's just been through a lot. She's had a lot of things thrown her way, and she's just always found the light in everything and kept on pushing, and just inspiring other people with her love and her kindness, and everybody that meets her is impacted by her light. And I am extremely grateful to be her daughter," Owens said.

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Red Flags Were Raised, but an Olympic Dream Was Dashed
Maya Wasowicz, a top karate fighter, was knocked out of qualifying under suspicious circumstances. A U.S.O.P.C. report backed up her claims, but Wasowicz still won’t be in Tokyo.


Maya Wasowicz is an elite fighter, and was favored in a U.S. tournament that could have propelled her to the Tokyo Olympics. The circumstances of her loss raised many questions.Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

By David Waldstein
Published July 16, 2021
Updated July 24, 2021
Maya Wasowicz was all alone when the last flicker of her Olympic dream died.

The world’s best karate fighters were throwing punches in Paris to determine who would go to the Olympics. Wasowicz and her supporters all felt that she should have been there, too. Instead, she sat on a bed in her grandmother’s apartment in Opole, Poland, streaming the event live on her phone — alone, in the dark.

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“I was definitely grieving it,” Wasowicz said, days later. “My family and friends refused to watch. But I had to see it.”

Over the next few weeks, fans of the Olympics will ingest a tidal wave of heartwarming tales illuminating the realized dreams of scores of dedicated and exceptional athletes. Tales of sacrifice and success, of years of hard work rewarded in a moment of glory. Then there are the stories of those left behind, many of them dedicated athletes like Wasowicz, who dream of medals, but find complex political roadblocks in their way.

A Polish émigré to the United States at the age of 11, Wasowicz discovered karate in Brooklyn as a girl and rose to become one of the elite fighters in the world. In 2016, when word filtered out that karate would be introduced at the next Olympiad, Wasowicz made the life-altering decision to try to be one of the handful of competitors in Japan, the ancestral home of the sport.

She put the rest of her life on hold, moved back in with her parents and dived into training. She even dared to visualize herself in Tokyo, in the arena, the American flag on her suit, fighting for her adopted country.

In order to earn that coveted place, Wasowicz first needed to win a domestic tournament in Colorado Springs in January 2020, an event she entered as one of the favorites. But in a day filled with controversy and acrimony, Wasowicz lost — unfairly, in her mind. An investigation by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee appears to back her contention, shared by other athletes, that the USA National Karate-Do Federation is rife with favoritism and conflicts of interest.

In a scathing report in April, the committee found that the federation “is not capable of fulfilling the responsibilities of an Olympic Sports Organization” and warned that if it did not address some serious issues, it would be stripped of its status as a national governing body.

But for Wasowicz and others, the report came too late. The U.S.O.P.C. did not require the federation to hold a new competition to correct whatever injustices may have existed in Colorado Springs.

“I feel validated that I’m not just a sore loser,” Wasowicz said. “People on the outside saw what was happening. But seeing them get away with all of this is just really tough to accept.”


Today, Wasowicz is back in New York, searching for work and trying to make sense of everything that happened.


When her family moved to the United States from Poland, Wasowicz found a home at the Goshin Ryu dojo in Brooklyn. Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

Learning to Be New Yorkers

Wasowicz, 27, was born in New Jersey, but she spent her first 11 years of life in Poland, before her family moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2005. Wasowicz remembers everything about her first day in the new metropolis. Her father took her across the Williamsburg Bridge and showed her the magnificent view of Manhattan spreading below. A few hours later, she spotted her first rat in the subway.

Life in a bustling urban environment could sometimes be overwhelming, especially that first bewildering year in school where Maya and her younger brother, Kuba, struggled to grasp morsels of English. The Polish markets and restaurants that dotted the city were places the Wasowicz family found temporary sanctuary and support.

“We talk about it all the time,” Wasowicz said. “What if we ended up in a random city in the middle of America? Here I found people who could relate to my experience. We were very lucky that we ended up in New York.”

One day they happened upon the Goshin Ryu dojo, a karate school in Brooklyn. It was run by Luis Ruiz, who remains Wasowicz’s sensei, or coach. Maya and Kuba reveled in the physical outlet that karate offered, a place where English was not as important as dedication, discipline and honor — or a good measure of athletic ability.

Wasowicz’s parents welcomed an activity that would help their children, who had faced bullying in school, defend themselves and gain self-confidence. For Maya and Kuba, it was just fun, and she continued to work with Ruiz, even after her family moved to Manhattan’s East Village.

It was there, while attending the Tompkins Square Middle School, that Wasowicz also discovered basketball. When she moved on to Beacon High School, Wasowicz joined the school’s varsity team, and four years later she was the school’s career scoring leader and the first Beacon player to have her number retired. She earned an academic scholarship to New York University, and played basketball all four years for the Violets while negotiating the complicated balance of varsity sports, rigorous academics (she majored in economics) and karate.

“I was in awe of Maya,” said Lauren Mullen, N.Y.U.’s coach at the time. “Here’s this 11-year-old girl who knew no English and then goes to N.Y.U. playing two sports at a really high level, and all with this self-confidence and toughness that you rarely see. She was just a winner.”

But as her basketball career ended in 2016, Wasowicz’s Olympic dream zoomed to the fore. She put any career business ambitions aside and moved back into her parents’ apartment in the East Village for the next five years while training two or three times a day with Ruiz in Brooklyn.

“Every athlete has to make that decision,” she said. “You put your life on hold and commit everything to going for it.”

A heavyweight who fights in the plus-68-kilogram class, Wasowicz grew stronger and more dangerous. In 2016 she was part of a U.S. team that won bronze at the world championships in Austria and reached a No. 7 worldwide ranking. In 2019, she won gold at the Pan American championships.

Continued next post

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Wasowicz was a star athlete at New York University, excelling at basketball in addition to her karate. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The Match

Heading into the U.S. team trials in Colorado Springs in early 2020, Wasowicz was brimming with confidence and poised for destruction. But during her matches against rival Cirrus Lingl that day, curious things happened, according to Wasowicz and Ruiz — their claims backed by both video footage and the independent investigation.

John DiPasquale, the president and chairman of USA-NKF, which has enormous influence over the sport, walked behind the scorer’s table several times during Wasowicz’s matches against Lingl. DiPasquale runs a top dojo in Illinois where Lingl trained, and during one of the early matches between the fighters that day, Wasowicz grew incensed, feeling DiPasquale was trying to influence the scoring in favor of Lingl. During a break, Wasowicz and Ruiz decided that if it happened again, she would complain to the referee.

A video of one of those later matches shows Wasowicz gesturing in consternation toward DiPasquale as he hovered behind the table during a scoring review. He is also seen pacing behind the table, perhaps just nervous for his fighter, during the action. But as the U.S.O.P.C. pointed out, it looked inappropriate and raised doubts.

Wasowicz contends that she had Lingl beaten earlier in the day but was not awarded the points she deserved. That result kept Lingl in the competition, and ensured she and Wasowicz would fight again, in the final. There, Lingl, an expert in her own right, won with a deft head kick. Furious, Ruiz unloaded on DiPasquale, charging that the president had affected the outcome.

When reached by phone for comment on the investigation, DiPasquale said, “Not a chance, pal,” and hung up.

Others in the U.S. federation dismissed complaints of bias. “Maya is one of the best we have,” said Brody Burns, the head coach of the U.S. Olympic team and a sensei at a top dojo in Texas. “But it’s not like she lost to a no name. She lost to a good fighter.”

Wasowicz agrees that she and Lingl are evenly matched. But on that day, she felt she was better, and that she should have earned a spot in the all-important Paris qualifying event.

A few weeks later, though, her problems were dwarfed by the pandemic. During the shutdown, Wasowicz stewed and pondered her options, and learned that other athletes were making similar charges against DiPasquale and the federation. The U.S.O.P.C. agreed to look into the matter and hired DLA Piper, an international law firm, to investigate.



While disappointed that she was not given another chance to qualify for the Olympics, Wasowicz, left, has continued to watch matches. She plans to watch the Olympics as well. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The Report

In a blistering letter from Holly R. Shick, the chief ethics and compliance officer of the U.S.O.P.C., to DiPasquale and the national karate federation, dated April 24 and obtained by The New York Times, the committee demanded immediate reforms. It noted the “severity of the issues” and said termination of the federation’s status as the national governing body “may be appropriate at this time.”

The investigation found numerous actual and perceived conflicts of interest, and the letter noted that there is a perception by athletes and coaches “of bias in favor of Mr. DiPasquale’s and Brody Burns’ dojos’ athletes.” Other athletes routinely feel, the investigators wrote, that “they have to ‘beat the system to succeed.’”

Phil Hampel, the chief executive of USA-NKF, declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S.O.P.C. referred all questions back to the letter.

It read like an indictment, but it did nothing to further Wasowicz’s hope of a redo of the qualifying event. That is why she sat alone in that dark room in Poland while on a family vacation in June, streaming Lingl’s fight in Paris on her phone’s tiny screen.

Lingl lost in the first round, ensuring that not only would she not go to Tokyo, but that the United States would not have a woman karate fighter in Japan.

“There is a part of me that obviously wanted her to win to keep the hope alive,” said Wasowicz, who until the final loss had held out faint hope that she might somehow go as an alternate. “There was also the part I don’t like about myself, that if she loses first round, it will prove my point.”

Now back in New York, Wasowicz is in a recovery phase. Her focus is on starting a career, like most of her N.Y.U. classmates, except it’s five years later. She teaches at her dojo a couple of days a week, sends out 20 résumés a day, and prepares to attack the next phase of her life as she did the last.

“You look back from where I was as an 11-year-old girl and where I am right now,” she said, “if I can do all that, I can do many things.”

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I understand why this was ruled so, but it's a laughing stock for those who don't understand sports vs. martial arts.

Makes me wonder if the medalist took a dive...

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This is in regards to the vid I tried to share earlier here.

Olympic martial artist knocks out opponent with kick, is disqualified from gold medal karate bout


Iran's Sajad Ganjzadeh, left, was awarded the gold medal after Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia left him unconscious with a high kick in the men's kumite 75-kilogram final. (Hedayatullah Amid/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
By Glynn A. Hill
August 7, 2021 at 4:53 p.m. EDT

In the final bout of karate’s Olympic debut, jubilation turned to dejection for Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia, whose first-minute knockout of Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh disqualified him in their gold medal contest Saturday.
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Hamedi dominated in the early stages of the bout, which served as the final of the men’s kumite in the 75-kilogram division (about 165 pounds). He scored a three-point “ippon” (a technique considered to be a decisive blow) with a hooking kick less than 10 seconds into the fight and added a one-point “yuko” after he punched Ganjzadeh several seconds later.
Almost a full minute in, Hamedi held a 4-1 lead.
But just before that first minute expired, he connected on a high left kick to the head, sending Ganjzadeh to his back, unconscious.
Hamedi hopped into a quick skip and thumped his chest. Ganjzadeh seemed to scream as he went to the mat, and as the official began counting down, two medics ran over to treat him.
Ganjzadeh was motionless and medics placed an oxygen mask on his face before removing him on a stretcher. Hamedi, who initially seemed certain of victory — what would have been Saudi Arabia’s first Olympic gold medal in any sport — appeared apprehensive as officials conferred with each other.
Moments later, Hamedi was disqualified for a hansoku, a serious violation of the rules. The NBC television broadcast said he had unleashed an unchecked attack, following through on his strike as a mixed martial artist would, which is considered too dangerous by Olympic karate standards. Ganjzadeh, who was informed of the decision when he regained consciousness, was awarded the gold medal, and Hamedi was given silver.
Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia was disqualified from the Olympic karate final event when he knocked out Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh on Aug. 7. (IOC)
“I’m happy about the gold medal, but I’m sad that I had to win it like this,” Ganjzadeh later told reporters.
Hamedi, who fell to his knees in tears after the decision, later held up his silver medal on the podium, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ganjzadeh. After a series of photos, they embraced and Ganjzadeh raised Hamedi’s hand in the air. Turkey’s Ugur Aktas and Ryutaro Araga of Japan took the bronze medals in the event.
“If you ask me if I agree or not, I disagree, of course, because I love the gold medal,” Hamedi said through an interpreter. “But I am satisfied with the level of performance I gave, and I accept their decision. I don’t have any objection. I think I played well. That’s all I can say.”

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Russian martial arts official killed in fighting
By Philip Barker Wednesday, 1 February 2023


The Donbass region of Ukraine has seen some of the heaviest fighting in the last month ©Getty Images

Russian martial arts official Sergey Uvitsky has been killed whilst fighting with the invading Russian forces in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Uvitsky, who was 41, had been part of what Russia's official state news agency TASS had described as a "special military operation" when he died.

Further details about the circumstances of his death have not yet been revealed.

Uvitsky was secretary general of the Russian Kyokushin Federation, a karate organisation.

"Sergey has always been distinguished by his indomitable will on the way to the goal and never gave in to difficulties," a bulletin issued by the federation said.

"Sergey was a man with an incredibly strong spirit, a true patriot, devoted to his country until his last breath.

"Therefore, having completed a glorious sports career and becoming one of the leaders of the Russian Kyokushin Federation.

"He stood up to defend the fatherland and died as befits a hero and a warrior while fulfilling a war mission."

Uvitsky had been a master of kyokushin karate and had won silver in the over-90 kilograms category at the 2010 European Championships.

After his competitive career was over he had become an administrator with the sport's federation.

When the war began, Uvitsky had joined the volunteer detachment of the Russian Union of Martial Arts Soyuz (RSMA).

Russian media agency Novosti reported that some 100 members of this unit had been given training by RSMA chairman Yuri Trutnev before embarking on the operation in Ukraine.

In Russia men between the ages of 18 and 27 have been subject to compulsory military call-ups during the war in Ukraine.

Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin had insisted there should be no exemptions and the conscription has also received the backing of Russian Olympic Committee President Stanislav Pozdnyakov.

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