Karate in the 2020 Olympics! (Is it good or is it bad?)

[Historyofkarate]

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Karate has officially been accepted into the 2020 Olympic games. Is it good? Is it bad? How do you guys think it will affect the art?

 

[Kickboxer101]

Good to get martial arts more representation and it could be good for karate schools business wise as boxing and taekwondo and judo all got people joining because of it so can't see why it'd be a bad thing

 

[Red Sun]

Which style of karate? Where can i find more information (i.e. ruleset?)

 

[Historyofkarate]

Which style of karate? Where can i find more information (i.e. ruleset?)

It's like WKF rules.

 

[Buka]

I think it's great.

 

[drop bear]

Wait. What? Non contact?

 

[Midnight-shadow]

Are we talking as just an exhibition sport or will it be a full time Olympic sport? I personally feel we don't need another Martial Art as we already have 6 in it right now.

 

[WaterGal]

From the article I read, it sounds like IOC has decided that in the future, instead of having exhibition sports, the host nation will get to pick a few additional sports to offer as regular events in that year's Olympics. Japan picked karate, baseball, surfing, skateboarding, and rock climbing. I'm guessing that if one or more is a big success, the IOC will add it as a regular event in the future.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

From the article I read, it sounds like IOC has decided that in the future, instead of having exhibition sports, the host nation will get to pick a few additional sports to offer as regular events in that year's Olympics. Japan picked karate, baseball, surfing, skateboarding, and rock climbing. I'm guessing that if one or more is a big success, the IOC will add it as a regular event in the future.

Ah I see. It's certainly an interesting selection of additions.

 

[Tez3]

They can't add five new sports every Olympics so I imagine sports will get kicked off, karate is likely to be one of them because of the perceived similarity to TKD, surfing might also be one if the games goes to a landlocked country! Likewise rock climbing if any of the Low Countries get the Games lol. It would have to be up artificial walls, speeding climbing might be fun.

 

[drop bear]

They can't add five new sports every Olympics so I imagine sports will get kicked off, karate is likely to be one of them because of the perceived similarity to TKD, surfing might also be one if the games goes to a landlocked country! Likewise rock climbing if any of the Low Countries get the Games lol. It would have to be up artificial walls, speeding climbing might be fun.

They do kayaking. They technically should be able to do rock climbing and even surfing.

http://www.canoekayak.com/whitewate...lympic-whitewater-course/#cKJC8dCkyBoMosrJ.97

 

[Tez3]

They do kayaking. They technically should be able to do rock climbing and even surfing.

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Most places have rivers or like a place in the UK where they built a course. It's very difficult to make waves for surfing if you don't have a sea, I know they can have those small artificial places but it's not the ocean is it? tock climbing would be boring as well if it's up artificial climbing walls.

 

[drop bear]

Most places have rivers or like a place in the UK where they built a course. It's very difficult to make waves for surfing if you don't have a sea, I know they can have those small artificial places but it's not the ocean is it? tock climbing would be boring as well if it's up artificial climbing walls.

You would think that. But after I mentioned it I did have a bit of a lookie Lou.

This Changes Everything: Kelly Slater's Artificial Wave Revealed

 

[Tez3]

You would think that. But after I mentioned it I did have a bit of a lookie Lou.

This Changes Everything: Kelly Slater's Artificial Wave Revealed

I can see that being a very popular leisure activity but I don't know anything about surfing and whether Olympic types would want to compete on it. I suppose it makes an equal playing field though.

 

[drop bear]

I can see that being a very popular leisure activity but I don't know anything about surfing and whether Olympic types would want to compete on it. I suppose it makes an equal playing field though.

Climbing?

 

[Buka]

Wait. What? Non contact?

Oh, God, please, not no contact. Might as well do it from across the room. Or on computers.

 

[WaterGal]

From what I recall, the article I read said that those sports are being added for the 2020 Olympics, but aren't necessarily a permanent addition. So it's possible that none of them will return in 2024, and that host country will have totally different sports they want to have. Or maybe some of the sports will be really popular and the IOC will make them permanent additions. Who knows.

That is a good point about the surfing. I wonder if things like that are part of why they're taking this approach - that way, they can play to the strengths of a host city without having to obligate future ones.

 

[Tez3]

I think for climbing they'd have to specify quite closely what they wanted, rock climbers with or without ropes ( those without ropes are just plain scary), I think climbing towers is a different sport from rock climbing though. Rather than climbing Parkour might be a better bet, a course could be made up easily I would have thought.

 

[JR 137]

Should've been knockdown karate, like Kyokushin rules. Would've done a far better a job at distinguishing it from TKD in the public's eyes. Most people think karate is a kid's dance-around in pajamas, light contact point fighting sport. Guess they're embracing that stereotype. Just when karate started to be cool again.

The only saving grace IMO is the inclusion of traditional kata. I'm quite surprised they didn't include kata set to music, smoke machines and glow-stick weapons while wearing outrageous uniforms. I mean why not? If you're going to reinforce a stereotype, might as well go all out.

As far as it effecting the future of karate as we know it, I doubt it'll have much if any long term effect. Karate's pretty well established and has been for quite some time. There's plenty of sport karate and traditional karate schools already. The sport schools will probably get some new students that wouldn't have walked into a traditional dojo anyway. I doubt the die-hard traditionalists will hop on any bandwagon. The ones that will benefit are the ones who've been flavor of the month for quite some time. They'll drop the Krav Maga and MMA and act like they're the next Olympic karate champ's dojo until that gets old and they move on to the next sweeping movement in MA.

All IMO.

 

[Tez3]

At the European Games, there was karate and kata along with Sambo and a few other sports not normally included in the Olympics. Karate kumite was contact and was very different from TKD.