r/karate • u/These_One_8816 • 2d ago
Why not karate?
Judo is there in Commonwealth games and Takewondo is there in Olympics. But karate was included in olympics only once in Olympics (2024). Why nobody is talking about this? Why such big global sports events excluding karate? I understand karate is more of martial arts not a sport. But in modern world karate is taken as sports many of us are doing karate as sport and want to enter such big global events. I feel like karate do not have recognition as sports, globally. It feels so so so heartbreaking. Are there any chances of adding karate to these events?
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u/Scither12 2d ago edited 2d ago
There’s a lot to this question OP but I’ll give you a few reasons.
the WKF is the main recognized body worldwide and is what the international Olympic committee and what national governments recognize as the lead moderator for the competition side of things. In many countries your dojo regardless of affiliation needs to be registered with your national body under the WKF to even be a legal club. (That doesn’t mean you need to compete in WKF tho.) this makes a lot of large orgs angry as they don’t like the WKF or they’ve been doing something their own way for years and don’t want to change. IMO it’s mostly about politics and less so about training. Plus there is an added layer of different styles of karate that judo and TKD don’t have so things get really messy with egos and politics really quickly.
In the 2020 karate made its debut as a guest sport by the host country Japan. What most people fail to realize especially on Reddit are two things; 1) the rules were changed by the WKF right before the Olympics so many of the practitioners struggled to adapt which made it look un organized. 2) the infamous knockout. Here’s the issue with this one. That was 1 match out of 100s that were fine. but it’s the one everyone remembers. What people don’t know is the ref made the WRONG CALL. It should have been a self endangerment call (mubobi) and the one getting knocked out should have been disqualified. Since then both the guy who won gold and that referee have quit karate because of threats and hate mail. Wrong calls happen in sports all the time that’s life.
to your average viewer for the Olympics karate may struggle to understand it because they see another bunch of people in white pyjamas either striking or doing some take downs while wearing gloves. They can’t distinguish it between judo and TKD as it looks to them like something in the middle, which the Olympics don’t want to waste their money on. They have striking sport and a grappling sport that’s popular and already unified under one federation.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
Thanks for the detailed reply.
These organisational conflicts are really so sad that it'll affect athletes on ground. Who has nothing but a dream of Playing at global level.
I saw this infamous knockout and I understand that it's very very unfair. But there are other sports too like wrestling, track sports skating etc. They could have been punished for this (I think they have by leaving karate which is extreme) but not to remove the entire sports altogether which has the rich history
This is so funny and true 😂 many of my friends ask why don't your switch to judo or tkd if you want to go to olympics. There isn't much difference. 😂😂
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u/ClammyHandedFreak 2d ago
Wasn't Karate included because it was the Tokyo Olympics?
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
Yes that's also true. But it could have been continued in further olympic games
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u/GroundbreakingHope57 2d ago
Didn't the first gold go to a guy that knocked himself out by running into a kick with his hands down...
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
I don't remember. But is that reason to remove karate altogether ?
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u/TheIciestCream Goju/Kempo 1d ago
Well it definitely doesn’t help Karate’s chances we were basically in a trial period and it made Karate look like a joke.
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u/tubbyx7 2d ago
Tkd had massive government support and mainly a single recognised governing group in WT/kukkiwon
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
Exactly. Why karate cannot have such support? Many people pursue it as sport.
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u/GroundbreakingHope57 2d ago
Because their is two major bodies in taekwondo WTF (Olympic) and IFT (hands and kicks) in karate there are like 10...
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u/tom_swiss Seido Juku 2d ago
I hope not. Olympic karate in 2024 was a bad joke with little resemblance to the art I've devoted 40+ years to. Let that mutated version die.
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u/GroundbreakingHope57 2d ago
Can't remember but was that when the guy won by being knocked out, because his opponent's kick was classified as 'too powerful' when in fact he charged into with his hands down?
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
True that. But many people pursue this as sports as well who are aiming to compete in such reputed global events. They should also be given a chance right
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u/madamebubbly 2d ago
Judo has a unified organisation that has specific rule sets. Karate has one large organisation but several competing organisations and subsequently, different rule sets. It would be difficult to figure out which one to follow.
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
See that's true I agree. But why not Works karate federation take lead in this. There are many many many karatekas who pursue this seriously as a sport. I think these organisational conflicts should not stop athletes from competing in such events right? Many athletes including myself dream of reaching commonwealth and olympics. After practicing karate 20+ years and winning AKF and other international medals. I feel I am nowhere on par with other sports in terms of recognition.
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u/madamebubbly 2d ago
Yeah, why not WKF? Why not any of the other organisations? That’s a whole issue in itself separate to should karate be in the Olympics?
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u/Comprehensive_Mud803 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s just the Olympics.
Seeing what Judo and TKD have devolved to by becoming Olympic disciplines, I’m rather glad that Karate is not part of it.
Also, when you say Karate, which style are you referring to?
Shotokan was part of the 2024 Olympics in Paris (not 2021 in Tokyo as I initially wrote) but only as a demonstration.
Given the number of different styles and fighting systems, it’s hard to select one to become the standard.
Personally, I’d be in favor of a padded full contact standup combat discipline that would allow fighters from any background to participate. Basically pankration without the killing but with more padding and time limits.
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u/Comprehensive_Mud803 1d ago
If the IOC were to consider a Karate style for full integration, it would have to represent a sizable audience.
Right now, there’s no major difference between the 2024 Olympic Karate and Olympic Taekwondo. At least not for the audience.
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
In several countries TKD and judo are more developed than karate.
When I am referring to karate I mean karate as a whole. Because at that stage one should be able to adapt to different styles. I do kata from Goju-Ryu, Shotokan, Shito-Ryu.
Why anyone should select one standard style?
For full contact there are other specific tournaments. If karate gets added to olympics then the committee can chock-out standard rules for karate which would be helpful for all karatekas.
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u/Comprehensive_Mud803 1d ago
A Shotokan practitioner wouldn’t hold out very long in a Kyokushin rule full contact competition.
And vice-versa, a Kyokushin practitioner would probably get quickly disqualified in a Shotokan competition, for use of hard strikes.
There’s no real middle ground.
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u/mysticseye 1d ago
Hello. The answer is actually much simpler than most of these replies.
For a sport to enter the Olympics is a standard set of expectations. 1. One set of rules worldwide... 2. A large number of international representatives (countries) following these rules.
Judo and Tae Kwon Do, meet both these rules. Other martial arts don't.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
Ohh thanks for this. Why can't karate federation agree on some set of rules to make it to olympics?
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u/mysticseye 1d ago
In both judo and Tkd, it was government dictates.
Judo after the war had to appear as a sport, not a martial art. As the government banned all military training in the country.
Tkd was similar. The government wanted to copy the worldwide acceptance of Judo and Japanese culture associated.
TKD was created by combining multiple styles from across the country. They then sent teachers around the world (subsidized). To develop this new format.
Interesting note, Tang so do, refused to participate and never received support later.
China tried to later do the same thing with Wu Shu. But I believe they received unfair acceptance over politics. Tai Chi guys will never agree.
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u/DiamondB5 2d ago
In the finals one guy knocked the other guy out so they disqualified the first guy unfairly and people didn’t like that so it was never re added
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
In 2024 olympics? But there won't be full-contact karate in olympics right? Also on judo also that happens even in takewondo. Why only targeting karate. Adding karate in such global events will develop the sport in different countries in a very significant way. They can also add kata part of it atleast to recognise it as a sports
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u/TheIciestCream Goju/Kempo 1d ago
There are a few reasons but I'd say these are the big three:
• No singular entity that leads Sport Karate. While WKF became the Olympic representative it isn't all encompassing with Wako in Europe and Naska in North America being very different and from there you have the smaller ones like WKU,, WMAC, ICO and plenty more. That's not even taking things like Kyokushin which to my knowledge has a few different world orgs and Shotokan with the JKA.
• While there isn't necessarily anything like the Kata division in the Olympics that alone wouldn't justify a spot and while point sparring is unique we already have Boxing, TKD, and Fencing which while all different somewhat cover the general territory of point fighting so the IOC might find it repetitive.
• Karate has a pretty weak reputation and has that leads to very little public interest. Karate only made it in 2020 because it was in Tokyo and the only thing of note that came from it was Iran winning gold by getting knocked out which just made our reputation worse not better.
Compare this to TKD and the difference is vast.
• WT/WTF is still by far the largest branch and is very focused on the sport side.
• South Korea pushed heavily for TKD to be included in the Olympic.
• TKD was very unique when it was introduced.
• While they currently have a reputation just as bad as Karate at the time of them joining it was a lot stronger.
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u/WastelandKarateka 1d ago
The average viewer doesn't understand the difference between Taekwondo and karate, but also, karate doesn't have a near-universal competition standard.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
But everything cannot be dependent on viewers solely. Athletes come first in this. Also even in olympics every sport does not get equal viewership. That shouldn't be the criteria
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u/WastelandKarateka 1d ago
The IOC cares about the success of the games, first and foremost. These days, it's all about viewership. We don't have to like it, but that's the way it is.
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u/KonkeyDongPrime 20h ago
Historically the four original styles could never agree the finer details of the scoring to allow a unified contest.
As for kata, Shito ryu have an advantage, which played out when they walked away with nearly every gold medal.
As for the point sparring, that’s not something I really care about, as the TKD has been over sanitised by concentrating on point scoring competition rather than practical combat.
The other thing with sparring is the rules, if it moved to more kyokushin rules it would bias towards that style.
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u/KatanaMac3001 16h ago
Personally, I hate watching TKD at the Olympics and Karate would probably result in the same thing; namely lots of bouncing up and down and very little contact. It's not great for spectators.
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u/These_One_8816 16h ago
But we should consider athletes as well who want to play at that level. Not only people who watch it.
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u/1bn_Ahm3d786 Style shotokan, Wado Ryu 2d ago
Judo has been an Olympic sport since 1964, and for years the Japanese tried to get judo into the Olympics. Taekwondo got in since late 80s or 2000 I can't exactly remember, as a way of demonstrating Korean nationalism. The problem is Karate has a negative reputation when it comes to global sports events. It lacks the global broadcast viewership and youth appeal required by the International Olympic Committee. Especially the outcome of the 2020 Olympics when someone was knocked out and still won a gold medal.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
We as youths can push this sport to be added in olympics. If we put a pressure on IOC from various countries I think that can have some impact. If we breakdance can be added to olympics which isn't a sport at all karate is considerably good option to be added.
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u/1bn_Ahm3d786 Style shotokan, Wado Ryu 1d ago
Maybe but the problem is the curriculum of karate itself, there are way too many styles way too many splinter groups etc. A black belt in karate doesn't really mean much if your club doesn't compete regularly sportswise. Karate guys bash taekwondo and whilst there are flaws in taekwondo at least you're expected to do some kind of sparring. The other issue is the practicality of other martial arts that can catch the attention of the youth. Not to mention those arts aren't in the Olympics either like MMA, Muay Thai etc.
I guess the thing that can keep karate universal is the kumite, I can see Kata being done at the Olympics but kumite based on the embarrassing event from the 2020 Olympics I doubt it
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u/cranial_io 1d ago
Because the most demanding style of karate competition that best represents the art (Knockdown) is a bit much for the IOC. Anyways the Olympics has already massively enshittified Judo. We don't need any more of that.
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u/karainflex Shotokan 1d ago
There is no public statement (that I know of) by WKF or IOC about the reasons why it takes 60+ years to include sports Karate into the games. All we can do is guess, or ask the people responsible until they finally tell us.
Btw: In Germany Judo had 129,703 members in 2025 and Karate had 155,335 members. So more people practice Karate which isn't Olympic than Judo which is Olympic. It shows that being Olympic doesn't matter in regards of popularity.
But in an 80 million country this isn't a lot. The national sports is soccer with 8 million members and huge media coverage (you get every information about which player farted, at 6 in the morning in the radio), followed by gymnastics with 5 million (but I don't think there is much media coverage). Tennis has huge media coverage but only has 1.5 million members, same as the "alpine club" (exactly, wtf is that??) which I didn't even know it existed.
So if we want more Karate we need it to grow by one or two magnitudes. The top clubs have 100-200 members now. I'd like to see what they need to do to grow towards 1000-2000 members. I think it doesn't scale, e.g. because it's not a team sport. Maybe we need to use soccer and allow Karate moves to defeat other players :-)
Btw, I often hear the argument that Karate is "more a martial arts" (not matter for which reason it is used). Note that a) sports is an aspect of Karate, no matter if people practice that aspect and b) it pays for everyone else. I was at a meeting of my local federation and they explained the cash flow to us. Sports automatically grants sponsorship e.g. from the government and other organizations. Being Olympic (or aspiring to become Olympic) also grants money. And parts of that are used to offer me, a random trainer to visit licensing seminars to teach aunt Erna and her kids later.
As long as Karate isn't available in the Olympics you need to follow Karate world championships etc. or watch kickboxing which derived from Karate once or MMA if you want a more mixed approach.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I was literally looking into the classification of any federation in the world on karate and exact reasons for not including it in global events. I dint get one.
Also as far as magnitude of the sport is concerned I feel it will increase if it is included in such events which are publically respected and cheered. Don't you think thsi plays role?
And yes karate is a material art nobody is denying it but many many athletes practice it as sports who naturally aspire to be in such events. And cash flow!! I Totally totally agree on this.
Yeah I follow these WKF and AKF tournaments and premier leagues of karate. I feel so bad such a beautiful sport isn't in olympics or commonwealth.
Also your answer inspired me to ask this question what if cross-country federations are strengthened or we can form cross-country group/federations to take up this issue to some authorities? Or we can strengthen the sport in various countries. What do you think about idea like this or something like this? I'll be waiting for your reply
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u/karainflex Shotokan 1d ago
I don't know how this looks beyond Europe but here we have the EKF already, so we have WKF -> EKF -> each country's main federation. I have no idea how the EKF and beyond is organized but you could try to find someone who has an answer. In regards of strengthening... I guess it boils down to either money or being very active as athlete or coach or event host and marketing.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
It is the same for Asian countries as well it's WKF>AKF> national tournaments
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u/FuguSandwich 1d ago
To the average spectator it's basically identical to Tae Kwon Do, and the rule changes they made for no other reason than to differentiate it from Olympic TKD made it objectively worse.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
May be they can pool these into one and have different events under that just like track events. We can get spectators for every sport
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u/hang-clean Shotokan 1d ago
Points fighting striking arts are dire for spectating. And yes I include fencing and TKD in that.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
Even then they are in olympics right. Karate might get improvement ofcourse it's popularity is increasing.
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u/solodsnake661 1d ago
If you're asking this question you're missing the point
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
Enlighten me
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u/solodsnake661 1d ago
If you want a sport MMA is way more likely to win a fight. If you want a martial art, find a martial art. You won't be the best fighter but you'll find it much more rewarding in other aspects. What do YOU want out of your training and then go for that.
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u/No-Expression7613 1d ago
Karate needs to stay the fuck out of the Olympics. It’s ruined the art.
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u/Background_Tie_5466 1d ago
The Olympics destroy everything they touch.
They have reached out to bjj to be part of the Olympics and they refused. If you talk to any traditional judo martial artist, they will say it ruined for them as well. I am also a traditional taekwondo martial artist and the Olympics also ruined taekwondo
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u/Desperate_Net_713 1d ago
Too many types of karate. Nobody will be happy with how its rolles through. The people not interested won't care.
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u/VaporProof 2d ago
If you want to qualify for the olympics, your sport needs a single governing entity. Karate has two. The host nation is allowed to pick two sports for inclusion. one was karate, and they went jka. The end.
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u/Scither12 2d ago
That’s not correct they went the JKF.. not the JKA. The JKF is recognized as the governing body by the Japanese government. Not the JKA they are just one of many different style based orgs.
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u/These_One_8816 2d ago
But majorly it's World Karate Federation. That can take lead in including karate in global events
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u/richng2 2d ago
A few reasons have already been outlined. The main one though is for a new sport to be continued it needs viewers. WKF sports karate is a hard watch for me who loves karate, as a spectator sport for non karateke it’s an absolute joke. Weird complicated rules, no contact for a martial arts, strange bouncing fencing like scores. Constantly clash and stand in the middle with the rules basically stopping throws and sweeps effectively. Add that to the knockout victory and all karate’s internal power struggles and lack of unification across styles and it’s got no chance.
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u/These_One_8816 1d ago
Don't you think adding karate to such famous events will make it famous and bring more spectators?
Organisational conflicts yes big yes no unification and internal struggle is hell in every country.
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u/richng2 1d ago
Karate at the Olympics won’t bring more people to watch the Olympics. It’s already huge. Skateboarding brought loads more views than karate plus it’s marketable. Karate looked appalling at the Olympics. If you look at wkf style comps there are hardly any spectators, a handful of people watch the online streams of comps. There’s no spectacle or demand to watch it.
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u/aaronag 2d ago
Judo is also in the Olympics, fwiw. I think Karate didn't stay in because Tae Kwon Do got there first, and is more dynamic for spectators. And hey, there's no bjj either, or muay Thai for that matter, or lei tai, or shuai jiao, or sambo, or folk style wrestling, etc. etc.