The Olympic ranking, the qualification tournament, the points awarded in each competition... All you need to know to follow the first Olympic qualification race in the history of Karate...

By Ludovic Mauchien / Photos : K-Photos

The Olympic ranking was officially launched on July 1st. For now, before the Berlin K-1 (September14-16), only Asians and Africans were able to score points following their continental championships held from July 10 to 14 for Asia and August 31 to September 2 for Africa. The Asian Games, which took place at the end of August, are not taken into account.

The rules of the Games

 80 athletes in 8 categories, or 10 participants per category.

 40 athletes per sex, 34 qualified, 4 Japanese, 2 CIO wild cards.

 8 categories : -67 kg (-60 kg and -67 kg), -75 kg, -84 kg, +84 kg, Kata for male ; -55 kg (-50 kg and -55 kg), -61 kg, -68 kg, +68 kg, Kata for female.

 1 country can qualify maximum 1 athlete per category, ie 4 men and 4 women maximum.

 The qualification is nominative. It is not the country that qualifies a category.

 The list of the lucky winners at the 1st Olympic Games in the history of Karate will be official and final on July 6th, 2020.

The host country boosted !

It's the tradition. The country hosting the Games can register an athlete in each category of each discipline. Oh, that's not an obligation, but for now, tradition prevails. We count on Japan on that ! In short, one of the 10 places in each category will automatically be occupied by a Japanese athlete. As if they needed that !...

Asians and Africans favored ?

What ? ! The 2018 Asian and African championships are taken into account for the Olympic ranking and not the 2018 Panamericans or the European championships, organized before July 1st ? That’s right ! Asians and Africans begin with a head start !!! But don’t worry (if we understand correctly), this gap will be filled in 2019 with the European Games (June 14-30) and the Pan American Games (July 26-August 11) which will serve as qualifying tournaments. Until then, reading the ranking will be a bit distorted, Asians and Africans have one more tournament...

The ranking ... Be patient !

 The top 4 athletes in each Olympic category are qualified for the Olympics (out of 10).

 All points earned between July 1, 2018 and April 6, 2019 will be reduced by 50%. The final ranking will be published on April 6, 2020.

 Only the last continental championships played during the qualifying period (July 1st 2018 -April 6th, 2020) will be taken into account for the Olympic ranking, unless the athlete does not participate in the second.

 In the weight categories desired by the IOC and regrouping two WKF categories (-55 kg for -50 kg and -55 kg, -67 kg for -60 kg and -67 kg), will be qualified the two best athletes of each WKF category in the Olympic ranking (eg the two -50 kg and the two -55 kg highest ranked).

 The ranking will be updated at the end of each competition

 The 2018 program

▪ Premier League, Berlin, Germany (September 14-16)

▪ Series A, Santiago de Chile, Chile (September 21-23)

▪ Premier League, Tokyo, Japan (October 12-14)

▪ World Championships, Madrid, Spain (November 6-11)

▪ Series A, Shanghai, China (December 8-9)

Points awarded

Each competition has a different value defined by a coefficient. 12 for the World championship, 6 for continental championships and Karate 1 Premier League, 3 for Karate 1 Series A and Karate 1 Youth League.

1st place : 100 points

2nd place : 70

3rd place : 40

5th place : 30

7th places : 20

9th places : 10

11th-13th places : 5

15th to 33rd places : 3

Won Match : 10

Attendance : 5

The qualification tournament

 Three places will be awarded through a qualification tournament which will take place from May 8th to 10th, 2020 in Paris. The top 3 in each category will qualify for Tokyo.

 Each country can register maximum one athlete per category.

Quotas

 A quota of 12 places is reserved for the continental representation, in short to have the assurance that these Games will be universal. Thus, the Pan-American and African continents have three wild cards, Asia, Europe and Oceania two.

 4 places (2 men, 2 women) are also awarded by the IOC as Wild Cards. But we do not know in which category. The proposals of the federations must be made in October 2019.