Cameras around the tatami and AI that spots attacks and step-outs: the World Karate Federation will trial a new refereeing support tool in December at the Karate One Youth League in Venice. Referees keep the final say.
20 – 22 November 2026 · Hangzhou
Karate World Cup - National Team Championships - Hangzhou 2026
14 October 2026
WKF World Cadet, Junior & U21 Championships, Bielsko-Biała 2026
Cadet Female Kata
The WKF has revealed the groups of the Karate World Cup 2026 in Hangzhou: four team categories, four groups of five, and only the top two of each group going through to the quarter-finals.
Silver in Budapest in 2023, then a first world title against Iran in Pamplona in 2024: Egypt arrives at the Karate World Cup in Hangzhou as the holder in male team kumite.
Karate will award no medals at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic event on African soil. It will be there all the same, on the Corniche, among schoolchildren and passers-by, with Douglas Brose as the IOC's Athlete Role Model.
In Bielsko-Biała, Palestine's Mariam Bsharat won junior −66 kg kumite gold, adding to her 2024 cadet crown: two world titles at two consecutive editions.
Two weeks after a last gold in Salzburg, the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist confirmed in Bielsko-Biała that he has retired and wants to work with the WKF.
Okumura and García Lozano in kata, a second straight title for Omar Osman, a first international gold for Alexandr Capmoale: the final day in Bielsko-Biała crowned the U21 world champions before Japan and Italy closed the week in team kata.
Meeting in Bielsko-Biała during the World Cadet, Junior and U21 Championships, the WKF's Brisbane 2032 Supervisory Board, chaired by Antonio Espinós, reviewed the action plan behind karate's Olympic hopes and the IOC criteria that will frame the decision.
Twenty-three world titles on Saturday in Bielsko-Biała: a first Polish gold for Natalia Balut, a 15-year-old Kvesić following his brothers, and Ito and Hamazawa repeating their cadet success as juniors.
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