1、Reach of your Sport? Members/subscribers, fan base –
We have around 100 millions practitioners around the world and more than 10 millions karate athletes competing in official national and international level competitions this year. The WKF has today 187 member federations recognized by their NOCs
2、Audience? What media exposure your IF has had – looking at any TV coverage, broadband/internet, print or other media proposition.
In any World and European championships we have live TV coverage at minimum in the finals (min 2 hours per day). In parallel after the competitions we create links in our web site with all competitions and hosted in our server for the use of our members. In the next World champ in Morocco we will start the webcasting of the finals through our web site. During all championships we have on-line results on the web and full information concerning the development of each fight which attracts many viewers.
The literal meaning of the two characters that make up the word karate –do in Japanese is 'empty hand', referring to the fact that karate originated as a method of self-defence which relied on the effective use of the unarmed body, and was made up of elaborate techniques of blocking or thwarting an attack and counter-attacking an opponent by punching, striking or kicking.
As a physical art, karate is almost without equal. Since it is highly dynamic and makes balanced use of a large number of body muscles, it provides excellent all-round exercise and develops coordination and agility.
With state of the art competition rules, prohibiting dangerous throws and attacks to the sensitive parts of the athletes' body, all under the principle of no contact, it is possible to hold actual matches as in other combat sports. Because of the speed, the variety of techniques, and the split-second timing it requires, highly athletic-minded people have come to show a particular interest in competitive karate.
Besides the sparring in 'kumite', the one-on-one combat between two athletes, there are competitions in which 'katas', Japanese for 'forms', are performed to the highest level of perfection.
Type of event: KUMITE
male individual kumite – 67 kg
male individual kumite – 75 kg
male individual kumite – 84 kg
male individual kumite + 84 kg
female individual kumite – 55 kg
female individual kumite – 61 kg
female individual kumite – 68 kg
female individual kumite + 68 kg
Female kumite -53 ` Kora KNUEHMANN (GER)
Female Kumite -60 Maria Sobol (RUS)
Female Kumite +60 Tiffany Fanjat (FRA)
Female Kumite Open Gloria CASANOVA RODRIGUEZ (ESP)
Male Kumite -60 kg Danil Domdjoni (CRO)
Male Kumite -65 kg Adam S. KOVACS (HUN)
Male Kumite -70 kg Rafael Aghayev (AZE)
Male Kumite -75 kg David Dubo (CHI)
Male Kumite -80 kg Satoshi Ibuchi (JPN)
Male Kumite +80 kg Stefano Maniscalco (ITA)