What I know about karate and the Olympics - Part II

Something I apparently didn’t make clear last time was that I’m not attempting to lay out a definitive history of karate’s attempt to gain Olympic acceptance. I’ve heard that someone is undertaking such a book and will gladly leave it to him. My goal is just to pass on what I know or was told by knowledgeable people, as well as some of my experiences with some of the participants to give some insights into how these people appeared to think and act.

Karate’s quest to gain Olympic approval began in the mid to late 60s. I (like most traditional Japanese instructors in the country at the time) was contacted in the 60s about plans for the first WUKO World Karate Championships. The event was the brain-child of French attorney Jacques Delcourt and Japanese industrialist Ryoichi Sasakawa, co-heads of WUKO, and organized around rules established by FAJKO – Federation of All Japan Karatedo Organizations – for competition within Japan. It was presented to us as the first step towards gaining Olympic recognition for karate.

Selection and training tournaments, organized under the AAU, were held around the country. I was invited to an event in Stockton, where an event-within-an-event was held at one of Ron Marchini’s tournaments. Minobu Miki and, I think, Fumio Demura and Kiyoshi Yamazaki came up to teach us the rules to be used by the world organization and ultimately the Olympics.

Four teams of five athletes were ultimately selected to represent the United States. These included many of our top competitors, including Marchini, Mitch Bobrow, James Yabe, John Gehlsen and Tonny Tulleners (both from my instructor’s IKA dojo), and others. The Northern California athletes worked out together at Sensei Don Buck’s dojo in Marin County.

Tonny Tulleners (left) and me at IKA championships

The first championships were held in Tokyo in 1970. My fellow IKAer, Tonny Tulleners, was the top US finisher, tying for third with the great Dominique Valera of France. First place was won by Koji Wada of Japan. John Carnio of Canada took the silver. John Gehlsen didn’t place in the final group but was awarded one of the Outstanding Fighting Spirit Awards.

According to George Anderson, karate was vastly more popular around the world than TKD. He told me that karate had over ten times as many registered athletes as did the Korean art. Hirokazu Kanazawa had a membership of over one million athletes in just Indonesia alone.

With so many athletes and a series of very successful world championships under its belt, why didn’t it happen?

The general consensus is that karate was largely kept out of the Olympics by Hidetaka Nishiyama. He wanted his organization, the International Traditional Karate Federation (ITKF), to be named the world governing body for karate. He claimed that what he called “sport karate,” which WUKO and others practiced, was different than true traditional karate and should not be allowed into the Olympics. Or, if allowed, it should be considered a separate sport.

I’m awaiting some documents which I hope to share with you on this subject. So I’ll stop for now, rather than wait longer for it to be tracked down.

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