Friday, 28 August 2026. The 2026 PKF Cadet & Junior Championships are underway in San José, Costa Rica.
WKF previewed the meeting on Thursday: more than 1,000 athletes from 27 Pan American countries, four days of competition. Last year’s edition in Asunción had over 800 athletes from 25 countries — WKF’s own comparison in that same preview.
The field is bigger. The mats are live. The 2026 medals are not up yet.
This is a continental youth dispatch, not a results article. When WKF publishes the table, that will be a follow-up.
Cadet & Junior — the WKF news title
WKF’s news title is the 2026 PKF Cadet & Junior Championships, San José, 27–30 August 2026. That is the line.
The event page heading also styles “Cadet, Junior & U21.” The extra band sits in the heading. It does not sit in the WKF news title. A heading is not a start list. We are not inventing U21 categories, weights or a U21 programme from that extra phrase.
The Panamerican Karate Federation’s notice is wider again. PKF announced the XXXV Junior, Cadets, U14 & U12 PKF Panamerican Karate Championship 2026 in San José, 24–30 August 2026.
That is a longer window than WKF’s competition dates. The days before Thursday are the sort of accreditation and arrival stretch a continental championships week usually needs. PKF’s public notice does not spell out a camp timetable. We will not invent one.
Karate Canada announced a team for Juniors, Cadets and U14 for 27–30 August. The national-federation competition window and WKF’s four days line up. PKF’s numbering still includes the younger U14 and U12 bands.
Four days, finals at the close
Competition started Thursday, 27 August. It continues through Saturday, 29 August. Finals sit at the end of each competition day. The event is dated 27–30 August.
That is all WKF’s preview gives on the rhythm. No gym name. No official 2026 category-by-category order. Those gaps stay empty.
Thursday was day one. Friday is day two as this is written. Saturday still carries competition and finals in the published frame. Sunday, 30 August, is inside the official event dates.
The WKF San José page puts the working tabs in a row: Main, Entries per nation, Athletes per category, Draws, Schedule, Live, Results, Medals. That is the feed. Not a reconstructed day sheet from outside the hall.
Asunción is the published yardstick
WKF used Asunción as the comparison and published a tally.
Over 800 athletes. 25 countries. The United States topped the table with 38 medals, including 13 golds. Brazil 31. Venezuela 25.
That is WKF’s published tally. Not a recount from another sheet.
Those three flags will be watched again. That is not a 2026 prediction. It is how the last continental youth edition finished, in the same preview that set this week’s 1,000-athlete, 27-country field against that 800-athlete, 25-country baseline.
Two more countries on the entry. More than 200 extra athletes on the headline numbers. WKF framed that as grassroots depth as much as podium maths: national federations putting a next generation on the mats.
The host trail
The WKF San José page lists the recent hosts: Asunción 2025, São Paulo 2024, Santiago 2023, Mexico DF 2022, Guayaquil 2019, Rio de Janeiro 2018.
Costa Rica is the new stop.
The published list jumps from Guayaquil 2019 to Mexico DF 2022, then a late-August run — Santiago, São Paulo, Asunción, now San José. Southern Cone, Brazil, Mexico, now Central America.
Canada named its team from Edmonton
On 21 August Karate Canada announced its team for the 2026 PKF Junior Pan American Karate Championships in San José, 27–30 August.
The published lists cover Juniors, Cadets and U14 — kata and kumite — plus male and female team kata. Qualification ran through the 2026 Junior National Championships in Edmonton, Alberta.
The federation posted full category-by-category rosters, not a short highlight reel. U14 kata and kumite, Cadet kata and kumite, Junior kata and kumite, both team kata squads. We are not reprinting seventy-plus names here. The list is on Karate Canada’s site.
Rodney Hobson, Karate Canada’s Sport Technical Leader, said in that announcement: “We are incredibly proud of every athlete selected to represent Canada at the Junior Pan American Championships this year. This team reflects months of dedication, sacrifice, and hard work, and we have every confidence they will represent our country with excellence and pride.”
That is one federation’s published picture. Other 2026 national lists are not in this dispatch.
Continental championship, then the world youth calendar
Later in autumn 2026 the WKF calendar has the World Cadet, Junior & U21 Championships in Bielsko-Biała, Poland, 14–18 October.
That is the next global youth meeting on the published calendar. Nothing in the San José preview, the event page or the PKF notice says this week is a formal qualifier for Bielsko-Biała. Treat the two as a continental youth championship and a later world youth championship — a development pathway. Not a qualification rule we have not been shown.
No 2026 medals yet
As of Friday 28 August, WKF has not published official 2026 San José medalists or a 2026 medal table. The event page has Results and Medals tabs. They are the place to look as bouts close.
This piece does not invent scores. It does not invent champions. It does not invent a gym.
The story today is the size of the field: more than 1,000 athletes, 27 countries, larger than Asunción, live on the Pan American mats.
When the official 2026 medals are up, karate.news will come back with the table.
Sources
- WKF: 2026 PKF Cadet & Junior Championships, San José
- WKF: San José ready to welcome the future stars of Pan American karate
- PKF: XXXV Junior, Cadets, U14 & U12 PKF Panamerican Karate Championship 2026
- Karate Canada: team for the 2026 PKF Junior Pan American Karate Championships
- WKF: 2026 World Cadet, Junior & U21 Championships, Bielsko-Biała
