Antonio Espinós will continue to lead international karate. The Spanish Antonio Espinós has been re-elected president of the World Karate Federation (WKF, for its acronym in English) by a new period of six years, until 2028, during the congress that the organization celebrates in Konya (Turkey).
There was no rival candidate and the assembly supported the continuity of Espinós, who has been in office since 1998, with the vote of 94 of the 99 participants. “I am prepared to remain committed to the development of karate; As long as I have the support of the national federations and the executive committee, I will have the strength to continue working”, detailed the 75-year-old manager. Despite the departure of karate from the Olympic Games program for Paris 2024, Espinós assured that his sport is now “more universal than ever.”
For Los Angeles 2028, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is open to including new sports. In August, the governing body of the Olympics sent proposals to nine federations, such as motorsports and karate.
Antonio Espinós assures that karate is “more universal than ever” despite having ceased to be an Olympic
In addition, they could also enter the break dancebaseball or softball, cricket, lacrosseel squash, el kickboxing and the flag footballa form of American football that is played without tackles.
Currently, the IOC program allows the participation of a maximum of 10,500 athletes, divided among the 28 disciplines covered by the event. The organization’s program includes water sports, archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, canoeing, cycling, horse riding, fencing, golf, gymnastics, handball, hockey, judo, rowing, rugby, sailing, shooting, skateboarding, football , sport climbing, surfing, taekwondo, tennis, table tennis, triathlon, volleyball and wrestling.
The last Olympic Games, held in Tokyo in 2021, had a final cost of 1.74 trillion yen (12,310 million euros). Those responsible for Tokyo anticipated, when it was chosen in 2013, that the cost of the event would be 7.3 billion dollars, which ended up rising as a result of the one-year postponement due to Covid-19. In addition, despite the ban on the presence of the public at the event, a total of 3,050 million viewers sat in front of their televisions and digital platforms to watch their respective nations compete.
