Karate WKF Premier League 2019

[phelps 7,678]

Disaster, absolute disaster for Italy...

 

this is the first time since the opening stage of the 2017 season that Italy do not appear at all in the medal table of a Karate Global competition...

 

very encouraging in the Olympic perspective...

Edited June 9, 2019 by phelps

[phelps 7,678]

after the "Summer break", K1PL is back...

 

and with the most prestigious tournaments of them all, the Japan Open, which is going to be held at the famous Nippon Budokan, venue that recently hosted the Judo World Championships and that next year is going to be the center stage for both Judo and Karate at the Tokyo Olympics...

 

 

Magnificent Nippon Budokan ready to host anticipated Karate 1-Premier League Tokyo

 

 

With nearly 320 days to the historic debut of Karate in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, Nippon Budokan sports hall is ready to host the Karate 1-Premier League Tokyo this weekend.

 

The fifth stop of Karate’s biggest international events will be held in the same venue of the Karate competition at the Olympic Games thus anticipation is running high among karatekas all over the world. 

 

The Karate 1-Premier League Tokyo is scheduled to start on Friday, September 6.

 

The elimination rounds will be held on Friday and Saturday, and the medal bouts will take place on Sunday.

 

The last day of competition will be available to a worldwide viewing audience on karateworld.tv and on many TV networks around the world.

 

Nearly 700 competitors from 79 countries are registered to participate in the event.

 

As the Karate 1-Premier League Tokyo will be the last international event to be held in Tokyo before the Olympic debut of the sport, the karate world is thrilled to watch the best karatekas in the world competing in Nippon Budokan this weekend.

 

All the current World champions and all the defending Grand Winners will fight for the gold medals this weekend thus guaranteeing the outstanding level of competition at the 2019 Karate 1-Premier League Tokyo. 

 

In addition to the Karate 1-Premier League Tokyo, the weekend will be memorable for Karate as the Tokyo 2020 Test Event “Ready, Set, Tokyo” is taking place in Nippon Budokan on September 9th. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2019 by phelps

[phelps 7,678]

Today's action in Tokyo...

 

 

women's Individual Kata
Gold Medal match: Sandra Sanchez Jaime vs Kiyou Shimizu
Bronze Medal match #1: Emiri Iwamoto vs Maho Ono
Bronze Medal match #2: Hikaru Ono vs Viviana Bottaro

women's Individual Kumite, -50kg
Gold Medal match: Alexandra Recchia vs Sara Bahmanyar
Bronze Medal match #1: Gu Shiau-Shuang vs Li Ranran
Bronze Medal match #2: Ku Tsui-Ping vs Ayaka Tadano

women's Individual Kumite, -55kg
Gold Medal match: Wen Tzu-Yun vs Anzhelika Terliuga
Bronze Medal match #1: Carlota Fernandez Osorio vs Alessandra Hasani
Bronze Medal match #2: Jennifer Warling vs Shiori Nakamura

men's Individual Kumite, -60kg
Gold Medal match: Angelo Crescenzo vs Darkhan Assadilov
Bronze Medal match #1: Eray Samdan vs Nenad Dulovic
Bronze Medal match #2: Majid Hassannia vs Alejandro Ortiz Fernandez

men's Individual Kumite, -67kg
Gold Medal match: Hiroto Gomyo vs Burak Uygur
Bronze Medal match #1: Dionysios Xenos vs Vinicius Figueira
Bronze Medal match #2: Soichiro Nakano vs Yugo Kozaki

men's Individual Kumite, -75kg
Gold Medal match: Ken Nishimura vs Rafael Aghayev
Bronze Medal match #1: Bahman Askari vs Noah Bitsch
Bronze Medal match #2: Stanislav Horuna vs Yassine Sekouri

 

[phelps 7,678]

contrasting results for Italy...

 

on the positive side, Angelo Crescenzo did a great job to make it through to the big final (where he's going to face his bête noir Assadilov...let's see if once in his lifetime can beat the Kazakh fighter), especially because in the semifinal bout he won against his direct rival for the last direct Olympic spot via OQR, Eray Samdan...

 

on the negative side, Luigi Busà lost once again against the no.2 Iranian, Ali Asiabari (judging from the score, this time it must have been quite an explosive and entertaining match, it ended 6-6 after the 3 mins of regulation) and therefore he's out and can't defend his title in this K1PL stage (last year he dominated the field at the Tokyo Budokan)...

 

not a great day also for Luca Maresca, who lost a close match against Figueira in the early rounds and so he has no chance to get a remarkable final placing...

 

finally, Sara Cardin ended up in 7th place, losing first to her longtime arch-rival Terliuga and then also to the Japanese Shiori Nishimura in the last round of repechage before making it through to the Bronze medal match...the jury is still out, but I think she could and should have done better...at least beating the Japanese girl in the repechage match...

in any case, it's also a positive thing to see her back and fully healthy...and since she has no reasonable chance to get an Olympic spot through the OQR, it's not that painful to see her 7th rather than 5th or 3rd (winning a Gold medal would be another story, however)...the important thing is to have her in top shape at the final qualification tournament in Paris next May...

[phelps 7,678]

Action from Day #2 in Tokyo...

 

 

men's Individual Kata
Gold Medal match: Ryo Kiyuna vs Issei Shimbaba
Bronze Medal match #1: Arata Kinjo vs Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila
Bronze Medal match #2: Chikashi Hayashida vs Kazumasa Moto

women's Individual Kumite, -61kg
Gold Medal match: Leila Heurtault vs Giana Lofty
Bronze Medal match #1: Mayumi Someya vs Ingrida Suchankova
Bronze Medal match #2: Yin Xiaoyan vs Maya Suzuki

women's Individual Kumite, -68kg
Gold Medal match: Irina Zaretska vs Alizèe Agier
Bronze Medal match #1: Alisa Buchiger vs Kyriaki Kydonaki
Bronze Medal match #2: Gong Li vs Silvia Semeraro

women's Individual Kumite, +68kg
Gold Medal match: Clio Ferracuti vs Ayumi Uekusa
Bronze Medal match #1: Titta Keinanen vs Maya Wasowicz
Bronze Medal match #2: Eleni Chatziliadou vs Nancy Garcia

men's Individual Kumite, -84kg
Gold Medal match: Zabiollah Poorshab vs Ryutaro Araga
Bronze Medal match #1: Ivan Kvesic vs Anton Isakau
Bronze Medal match #2: Aykhan Mamayev vs Igor Chikhmarev

men's Individual Kumite, +84kg
Gold Medal match: Saleh Abazari vs Jonathan Horne
Bronze Medal match #1: Sajad Ganjzadeh vs Mehdi Filali
Bronze Medal match #2: Gogita Arkania vs Daiki Ando

 

 

 

women's Team Kata
Gold Medal match: Kenshinkan Japan vs Keio University
Bronze Medal match #1: Yamanashi Gakuin University A vs Yakumo Gakuen
Bronze Medal match #2: Malaysia vs Vietnam

men's Team Kata
Gold Medal match: Naniwa High School vs Ryueiryu
Bronze Medal match #1: Osaka Gakuei vs Turkey
Bronze Medal match #2: Yamanashi Gakuin University A vs Teikyo Japan

 

[phelps 7,678]

very good (and unexpected) performance by Clio Ferracuti in the women's +68kg...she's been able to take advantage of a good draw and made it through to the big final...chapeau!

 

good, but not good enough, instead, Silvia Semeraro's day...she's going to be in the Bronze Medal match, but the problem is that she lost against the French girl (Agier) a direct match up for the high places in the OQR, which means that the French is going to gain points on her...

and also Zaretska is in the big final...

basically, only Quirici will sum up less points than Semeraro this week, but she has such a big advantage over the Italian in the standings that she's not the girl she has to run against...

she does definitely need to win at least 1 or 2 big tournaments in this final part of the year and make sure her direct opponents lose some points, as relying only on the repechage spot through the Continental Games she has in the bag could be dangerous and illusive at the end of the OQP...

 

among the boys, meaningless apprearance by Simone Marino in the superheavyweights and good (7th place in the end), but not good enough outing for Michele Martina in the -84kg, losing first the pool final against Araga and then the last repechage match before making it to the bronze medal match against Chikhmarev...once again a Kazakh guy stopping one of ours (we definitely have a problem when facing Iranians and Kazakhs)...

[MHSN 3,621]

After some good results in the past tournaments, this Japan K1 turned out to be disappointing for our Olympic chances. at first look it's OK we have 3 in the final and few more for the bronze but in fact none of them are our Olympic candidates

 

Ganjzadeh and Askari both should fight for the bronze, Ganjzadeh lost to another Iranian   but the biggest disappointment was for the women's side, we had 3 in race for the Olympic quota and none of them made it to the medal round. we are back to the square one when only 2 quotas were possible.

 

btw it will be a tough battle for Iran's +75kg spot. Ganjzadeh is currently second but Poursheib and Abazari are right next to him and they are both in the final here in Tokyo. which makes me think what if Iran has someone in top 2 in both 84kg and +84kg ranking ? it will be up to Iran to decide ? or the Karateka with highest points will qualify. that's important for other countries as well.

Edited September 7, 2019 by MHSN

[phelps 7,678]

52 minutes ago, MHSN said:

After some good results in the past tournaments, this Japan K1 turned out to be disappointing for our Olympic chances. at first look it's OK we have 3 in the final and few more for the bronze but in fact none of them are our Olympic candidates

 

Ganjzadeh and Askari both should fight for the bronze, Ganjzadeh lost to another Iranian   but the biggest disappointment was for the women's side, we had 3 in race for the Olympic quota and none of them made it to the medal round. we are back to the square one when only 2 quotas were possible.

 

btw it will be a tough battle for Iran's +75kg spot. Ganjzadeh is currently second but Poursheib and Abazari are right next to him and they are both in the final here in Tokyo. which makes me think what if Iran has someone in top 2 in both 84kg and +84kg ranking ? it will be up to Iran to decide ? or the Karateka with highest points will qualify. that's important for other countries as well.

 

the rules say it's about the ranking points...but if both are above all the rest of the field, it might well be that the Iran's NF can somehow (unofficially) decide who's going to tokyo by withdrawing the one they want to stop by the end of the OQP (for instance, saying he's unable to attend the Games because he has a long term injury)...

[MHSN 3,621]

Just now, phelps said:

 

the rules say it's about the ranking points...but if both are above all the rest of the field, it might well be that the Iran's NF can somehow (unofficially) decide who's going to tokyo by withdrawing the one they want to stop by the end of the OQP (for instance, saying he's unable to attend the Games because he has a long term injury)...

 

I read the rules for 1000th times. it doesn't say anything about what if a country has more than one athlete inside the qualification zone ! it's all about re-allocation. that's OK if they are both from the same weight. (one can withdraw, so we can send the next one) but if one of them is from 84kg and one from +84kg. the next guy in the ranking is actually different. (and from different countries)

 

Ganjzadeh and Poursheib are close friends but this is 1 chance for lifetime to be at the Olympics. none of them will give up that easily. if we can't have our own trials to determine the best. I think our coach (who is a nice person) also prefers the ranking solves the problem for him, then he can tell the other guy. "sorry bro, I wanted to send you but that's WKF's rule, I can't do anything about it "

[phelps 7,678]

Just now, MHSN said:

 

I read the rules for 1000th times. it doesn't say anything about what if a country has more than one athlete inside the qualification zone ! it's all about re-allocation. that's OK if they are both from the same weight. (one can withdraw, so we can send the next one) but if one of them is from 84kg and one from +84kg. the next guy in the ranking is actually different. (and from different countries)

 

Ganjzadeh and Poursheib are close friends but this is 1 chance for lifetime to be at the Olympics. none of them will give up that easily. if we can't have our own trials to determine the best. I think our coach (who is a nice person) also prefers the ranking solves the problem for him, then he can tell the other guy. "sorry bro, I wanted to send you but that's WKF's rule, I can't do anything about it "

 

I can understand that point of view...probably, I'd also wash my hands with that kind of an excusation, if I had to take this kind of decision...