He didn’t miss a fight during the Olympics. He had a blast, especially on day 1. He was impressed by Steven Da Costa, seduced by Tareg Hamedi, frustrated by the KO and the win of Ganjzadeh, irritated by some referees decisions, pleasantly surprised by Harspataki, Almasatfa and Gaysinsky.
The Englishman Wayne Otto, 9 times world champion, karate legend, looks back on the Olympic Games with his expert eye, his discerning gaze. A fine and relevant analysis of fights and Karatekas. Just fascinating !
Interview by Ludovic Mauchien
-67 KG : « EVERY GENERATION HAS A SPECIAL ONE. IT WAS AGHAYEV. NOW, IT IS STEVEN »
The 1st day was fantastic, the best possible advert, the best start for promoting Karate on TV. Steven Da Costa is absolutely one the great athletes of the Games. Every generation has a special one, someone absolutely special. From 2000 to now, it was Aghayev. But, now, the special one, the very special one, is Steven. Hands down ! The last time I saw someone like in France him was probably Alexandre Biamonti. Steven is the real deal. His timing, his leg, his eye, everything…
He lost his 2nd fight but he showed me he has true mental promptitude and attitude. He came back from that loss and he didn’t fail again. I have my doubt about him maybe 3 years ago. But, after he won the World championships in 2018. I said : « ok, let me pay attention to him. And I started to look at him at K1’s more and more ».
Eray Samdan did a fantastic job. I saw him performing at the qualification tournament in Paris. I has a little conversation with him in the elevator.He was smiling. He said : « I did 6 fights, I still have another 3. I haven’t even made it yet ». He was so determined. To see that he made it to the Olympics and to the final… He did very well !
Darkhan (Assadilov), as always, is an excellent fighter. But, on this occasion, Da Costa had taken the measure of him. It was Da Costa’s day ! But Darkhan also did very well.
The -67 kg category was very tough. Nearly all the fighters had the possibility of winning, especially the fighter from Jordan, Almasatfa. He was a surprise to me. His kicking, his eye… We have to pay more attention to him. He has some tremendous abilities ».
-75 KG : « GOING BEHIND BUSA IS NOT A GOOD IDEA »
Obviously, it wasn’t as spectacular as the -67 kg the previous day. The difference with -75 kg and the other male categories that merged together and where you have situation with people that never fight each other, everybody knew each other very well. So the situation was a little bit more tend. It wasn’t so much high scoring.
Now, because of this, a lot more warnings were being given on the 2nd and 3rd day. For me, this is always a problem. I think that, in a competition, you definitely have to have more points than warnings.
Having said that, Aghayev getting into the final was correct. He did his job. All of them managed to do their job. But I don’t think anybody was overly exceptional. When I look the standards of K1’s, you can more or less say the Olympic Games tournament kind of follow the same line of action.
I expected Ken Nishimura to come through. He actually did something that was quite un-japanese like : running off the arena like that. He paid the price for it.
There weren’t really any surprises, but Harspataki. His fight with Nishimura, his kick, was probably the biggest highlight and upset of the Games. What he did, to have that determination to go forward ! His last kick was spectacular but, if you remember, he did exactly the same thing in the last 4 in the qualification tournament in Paris. So, he has that ability even when it seems done at the end.
That’s what I say to a lot of fighters. Someway, in your arsenal, when it really matters, when you need to pull it out the most, you need to have a big point, you need to be able to produce that big point, it needs to be a 3-pointer. He showed he can deliver that technique, deliver a good 3-pointer exactly when it needs it, on demand. That was a spectacular moment.
Concerning the final between Busa and Aghayev, I didn’t really like it. Not that I don’t like the fighters but… Where are the points ? I am looking for Karate, a clean one. There is a lot of pushing, holding, things like that. I have to remind myself that is the modern age of Karate at this level. They fight within the rules. If the rules are different, the fighting changes.
And the fact is that they know each other so well. They have been fighting each other for the last 10-15 years. It’s not going to be exciting, filled with points, filled with spectacular techniques. They know each other so well that they know to win this fight, whoever takes the 1st point, that’s it. I don’t think that there is anything that they each of them doesn’t know about each other. They even know what each one has for breakfast.
It’s not the matter that I like the fight or not, it went as I expected. The result… It could have gone to Busa, it could have gone to Aghayev.
Busa vs Horuna. I spoke to Horuna briefly. He told me he wasn’t satisfied by his performance. They all know each other very well. Horuna just won the European championship in a spectacular fight with Aghayev, a last minute kick that caught Aghayev and Horuna managed to win the title. He didn’t do anything wrong in Tokyo. I just think Busa was better at this game, on that day. It was his, that’s it. Sometimes, that’s exactly what it is. It’s not that you did anything wrong. But, on this occasion, one happens to be better.
And, with Busa, if you lose one point of him, it’s very difficult to come back because he plays the movement around the arena, has a good timing and everything. Going behind Busa is not a good idea.
+75 KG : « THE LAST FIGHT OF THE LAST DAY… THERE IS A BITTER TASTE… WHY NOT MUBOBI ? »
For me, it was a disappointing way to finish the championship. Knowing Sajad (Ganjzadeh) as I know him, I don’t think he wanted to win a championship like this. I am sad for Tareg (Hamedi) because I think he was definitely going to win. He was on fire.
Tareg was special anyway this day. He was on a different level. He has been strong for many years. The 1st time I saw him, it was 2015, at the Junior world championships. He won his category, and he won each fight 8-0 !
The 1st time I saw him compete in Senior was in the K1 in Okinawa 3 years ago. He was already special. The fact that he finally came through is not a surprise. But, actually go and win, and almost be Olympic champion, waouh ! That is some progression (he laughs).
It was absolutely a good final before the KO. But there is a bitter taste, of course. It was the last fight of the last day of the Olympic Games, and it hadn’t to end this way. The referees had the duty to look at that situation and thinking : « if we end our last fight on this, maybe it would be bad for us and, instead, what we need to look at is : this is karate, that was a technique, that guy should win and we should have somebody standing up winning. It’s the way the public would understand ». Like in boxing, the person who is standing is the winner. In that situation, they could have looked at it. This is the problem.
We have received some negative feedback on social medias. I read some posts and I say : none of you knows what he is talking about, because it’s very difficult to determine how hard a kick is, unless you are on the end of it. What you think is not so much a hard kick just happens to hit at the right spot and it can take you down. And there are some kicks that are very hard and don’t take you down. You know, in the 1996 World final, Herrero kicked me in the eyes. And I was blind. I couldn’t see anymore. I won the World championship on this.
Why not Mubobi ? There was a Karate 1 with Jordan Thomas and Pokorny where they did it. At first, they disqualified the Austrian fighter who then complained, and he got the decision overturned. It turned out they put Mubobi for Jordan. They did have a reference to something similar to this before.
The problem that Karate has is that… In other sports, the performance is judged on the performance, clear and simple. In Karate, we are judged based on our performance but our performance is dependent on how good the referees are. So, sometimes, you can do a perfect point but the judges don’t see it !
As coach, we have the video review but there should never be a situation where a coach sees a point and the 4 judges don’t see the point. You pull up the card for video review. And yes, there is point. How can a coach sees the point and the 4 judges don’t, as they have a better position ? It’s a problem. The worst of that problem, when you go to the video review, sometimes, aka scores and blue asks for the video because he thinks he scored at the same time. And, in the video, you actually see that aka point is missed ! But the 4 referees gave the point ! (He laughs). This is the problem.
Look at the final. Tareg’s Ura is missed ! All the referees put their flag up. This is what I am saying. And this was not the only time. In qualification, athletes aren’t being judged on the quality of their techniques. Our faith is left in the hands of referees. How good they are on the day determines win or lose !
It would be better if you got ride of the 4 judges, just have 1 referee to decide. You have 1 referee, 1 coach, 1 review card and you can decide. But having 4 judges and they still can’t see the points ! You can’t see when something is missed ! It’s terrible !
Back to the athletes, I was disappointed to see Jonathan Horne’s arm. It looked like it broke underneath. It was.. Bahhh ! I like Gogi (Arkania) as a fighter as well. I think he did really well to get to the Olympics. Kvesic underperformed a lot. I don’t know whether he was injured or not, but he didn’t seem as hungry as I have seen him in the past.
What about Araga ? His performance was okay, credible and he deserved a bronze medal. The fact that he is the only medal from Japanese Kumite doesn’t surprise me that much. I think the last 2 years, with Covid, kind of isolated Japanese fighters. I think if these Games happened a year ago, some results would have been really different. And Tareg did a good job against Araga.
The one who impressed me with his karate is Daniel Gaysinsky from Canada. I watched him a few years back and I thought he was a good fighter. And then, he made it to the Olympics. Tareg took him out but, in the other fights, he performed very well.
To be followed
