Those who are practicing karate specially sports Karate will know about World Karate Federation(WKF). They also know about the contribution of development of Karate in world.
Its not about WKF who works for Karate its about the working committee or members who work for the WKF.
Decade by decade people come from various part of the world and work for WKF for the betterment of Karate.
All these members had worked so hard that`s why Karate is so much popularize in world and now we know Karate as a Olympic Sports.
At Present WKF is headed by Mr. Antonio Espinós, under his leadership & guidance Karate is Introduced in Olympics
But Before World Karate Federation WUKO is there which governs the Karate Sports at Global level. So lets discuss about WUKO
During 1960 there are lots of International Championships are going world wide but as their is lots of karate styles this make these championships different in terms of rules or any dedicated protocol for these championship.
That indicates the scope of having one common International federation for Global.
In this connection Ryoichi Sasakawa, President of the Japan Karate Federation (JKF) and Jacques Delcourt, President of the European Karate Union (EKU) jointly proposed a series of meetings that would produce not only the first amalgamated international rules for sport Karate, but also the establishment of the World Union of Karate Do Organizations (WUKO) on October 10, 1970.
WUKO
WUKO was inaugurated in 1970 at Tokyo and first WUKO World Championships was held at Tokyo, 1970.
Poster of First World Championship at Tokyo , 1970
Portland, Oregon hosted the first meeting of the fledgling WUKO Directing Committee and the objective of which was to lay the foundation for the future of unified sport Karate.
National Karate Federations recognized by their National Olympic Committees and Highest Sport Authorities soon became members and thus WUKO became the most important world governing body for Karate.
WUKO(World Unions of Karate Organizations)World Union of Karate Organisations
Ryoichi Sasakawad
Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa, President of the Federation of All-Japan Karate-Do Organizations, he promoted intensely the creation of an international Karate organization.
He was elected 1st WUKO President in 1970.
His tenure was 1970-1992.
CHANGE TO WKF
WUKO membership increase to 150 National Federations as the integration of many new organizations during the 1990s.
Due to this the name of the first International organization representing sport Karate was thus changed to World Karate Federation (WKF) on December 20, 1992.
Jacques Delcourt
Mr. Jacques Delcourt was President of the French Karate Federation then he promoted first the creation of the European Federation, being its first President and later on being the President of WUKO.
His tenure was from 1992 to 1998.
Antonio Espinós
Mr. Antonio Espinós is currently president of World Karate Federation(WKF)
Under his dynamic leadership IOC officially recognised the World Karate Federation as the sole governing body for the sport of Karate in the world in the year of 1999.
Under his leadership Karate had been introduced in Tokyo Olympics 2020 as a Medal Sports.
It has been a dream of every Karateka to participate and won medal in Olympics for their country specially Gold Medal.
For Olympics WKF has worked so hard to get in Olympics. So many changes has been done by WKF to introduce Karate in Olympics.
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