Netsite : www.f-park.co.jp/karate
E-mail : danryokyoto@kns.jtb.co.jp

Events
Kata individual : 1 competitor by country by sex
Kata by team : 3 competitors
Kumite individual : 1 competitors in each events.
Men : -60kg, -66kg, -73kg, -80kg, +80kg & open
Women : -53kg, -60kg, +60kg & open
Kumite by team :
-Men : minimum 5, maximum 7
-Women : minimum 3, maximum 4

Participation
1 Mondial referee / country, if 5 or more competitors

Delegation
Maximum 19persons : 17 competitors (11 men & 6 women) and 2 officials.

A date not to be missed
Adding a new sport to our championship programme always entails some risk—all our technical delegates agree that a World Championship needs at least 10 countries to be worthwhile. So we were anxious to see what the reactions would be to the introduction of karate on the list of FISU championships.

The French Association (FNSU) was the first to volunteer to take charge of the World University Karate Championship. With the unconditional support of the French karate federation, which has many licensed karatekas among the students, and a solid organisation, the FNSU successfully recorded the impressive participation of 238 contestants from 31 countries! For the first championship, this was truly exceptional, with an excellent level of sportsmanship. At the time, the other applicant for the organisation of the championship was none other than Japan which finally had to wait until 2000.

The waiting was well worthwhile. This year too, the popularity of the sport was confirmed. For the second edition, 237 athletes from 36 countries vied for the title! Five continents were represented, moreover, which is fairly rare. And we must add that Japan is the birthplace of karate. For that reason, many university associations were determined to offer their student athletes a chance to take part in a major international competition in that country.

The Japanese University Association (JUSB) did everything to a T to offer all participating nations a welcome worthy of its reputation for hospitality. And everyone agrees that it succeeded admirably. The opening and closing ceremonies, and their many references to Japanese culture, were superb. On top of that, organisers invited participants to a number of cultural productions and events in the city of Kyoto.

The competition included two different types of events: kumite and kata. Kumite simply means combat, whereas for the kata, isolated or group participants simulate a combat with no opponent. The purpose is to perform the technical movements and sequences as well as possible. Mastering a martial art comes with a constant repetition of kata.
Although the kata are less spectacular than the actual combats, they are the very essence of karate.
Karate enthusiasts take pride in the spirit of the sport, which is closer to fencing than to boxing to their mind, because the objective in karate is to mark points, not to knock out the opponent.

For the occasion, Japan lined up a very strong team—most of the members are on the national team. The upcoming non-university world championships to be held in Munich on 12 to 15 October added a pinch of spice to this event. After all, for many karatekas, their participation in Munich depended on their results in Kyoto. So it was no accident to find many student champions among those selected. The French team, for example, which came home with 11 medals, 4 of them gold, included 8 university karatekas (out of the 20 atheletes selected for Munich. For kumite (combat) they were Olivier Baudry, Robert Gomis and Yann Baillon, who all three gave an illustrious individual performance and won the team award. In kata, they were Stéphane Mari and Myriam Szkudlarer who both won silver medals. And finally for the women’s kumite, they will be Patricia Chereau (silver medal for > 60 kg) and Nadia Mecheri, who also won the gold medal team award.

We can see that, as in the previous championships in Lille in 1998, the French team brought home a handsome set of medals. Still, it had to share the honours with the Japanese team that pocketed 9 awards, 6 of them gold. And in the women’s kumite events, Japan was overwhelming, winning 3 of the 4 titles.

The Italians too gave a noteworthy performance, winning the team award for men’s kata; bronze medals for individual kata for Luca Valdesi on the men’s side and Roberta Sodera on the women’s; a bronze medal for kumite team and finally, bronze medals in five individual kumite categories: Fransesco Ortu in > 60 kg, Ciro Massa in > 66 kg, Davide Benetello in < 80 kg, Stella C. Bux for > 60 kg and Roberta Minet for < 60 kg.

And as a conclusion, we already know that the next WUC in karate will take place in Puebla (MEX) in 2004.

MEN'S TEAM KATA
	Points
1 ITA	43.1
2 JPN	42.4
3 MEX	39.5
WOMEN'S TEAM KATA
	Points
1 JPN	42.7
2 SVK	41.2
3 POL	40.4
MEN'S TEAM KUMITE
1		FRA
2		SVK
3		ITA
3		NZL
WOMEN'S TEAM KUMITE
1		FRA
2		YUG
3		GER
3		TUR
MEN'S INDIVIDUAL KUMITE
-60kg
1 NISHIKAWA Kouji	JPN
2 TULEJA Pavol	SVK
3 ORTU Francesco	ITA
3 CHAVALEEV	RUS
-66kg
1 KOTOKA George	USA
2 LAKCEVIC Vladimir	YUG
3 MASSA Ciro	ITA
3 BOSKOVIC Lazar	GER
-73kg
1 BEAUDRY Olivier	FRA
2 OVIEDO Emilio	MEX
3 EDWARDS Tyron	NZL
3 MORI Toshihiro	JPN
-80kg
1 TUCEK Jan	CZE
2 BAILLON Yann	FRA
3 SHIMIZU Ryousuke	JPN
3 FINEGAN William	USA
+80kg
1 HOCINE Hakim	FRA
2 KOROLEV Andrey	KAZ
3 JEGHAM Hannibal	TUN
3 BENETELLO Davide	ITA
Open
1 GUERUNOV Alexander	RUS
2 GOMIS Robert	FRA
3 FARMADIN Klaudio	SVK
3 STOJADINOV Predrag	YUG
MEN'S INDIVIDUAL KATA
1 MIYAGUNI Sunao	JPN
2 MARI Stephane	FRA
3 VALDESI Luca	ITA
4 DIAZ Antonio	VEN
5 TAMASIRO Akio	PER
6 WOLF Benjamin	GER
7 ASHRAFI Mohsen	IRI
8 LEE Ta-Chiun	TPE
WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL KATA
1 NAKAMURA Chieko	JPN
2 SZKUDLARER Myriam	FRA
3 SODERO Roberta	ITA
4 NIINO Marie	GER
5 KOHUTOVA Jaroslava	SVK
6 NOVA Petra	CZE
7 RAZDFINDERAKOTO Miora	MAD
8 AU Eliza	USA
WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL KUMITE
-53kg
1 MIYAMOTO Sachiko	JPN
2 RUIZ Vanessa	FRA
3 SANDU Stefania	ROM
3 CESPEDES Gabriela	MEX
-60kg
1 HIRATA Yuya	JPN
2 CHEREAU Patricia	FRA
3 LIRA Yadira	MEX
3 C.BUX Stella	ITA
+60kg
1 OKUDA Yuuko	JPN
2 ARAS Yildis	TUR
3 MINET Roberta	ITA
3 MITIC Sladjana	YUG
Open
1 LAZAREVIC Roksanda	YUG
2 PINDEVILLE Ariane	BEL
3 GERBET Sophie	FRA
3 OGASARAWA Maki	JPN

The confirmation
It was the French Association (FNSU) who was the first to table the idea of organising a World University Karate Championship. With the unfailing support of the French Karate Federation, which includes many qualified students, and thanks to very sound organisational preparations, the FSNU scored a high participation rate, with 238 karatekas from 31 countries! Moreover, thanks to the strong competition, the karatekas had to fight hard for selection, distinguishing themselves in national juniors and/or seniors national championships.
As a rule, the competitors insisted on the karate spirit, which they prefer to see as being more akin to fencing than to boxing. It is true that in karate, the emphasis is on point scoring rather than achieving a KO.
The second World University Karate Championship will unfold in Asia, the cradle of the discipline, and more precisely, in Kyoto, Japan.
It’s a sound bet that Japan will have a strong line up, although, judging from the results of the first championship, the Asians will have to put up a good performance to beat the Europeans... and the French in particular, who took a good proportion of the medals for themselves.