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6th World University Karate Championship

Podgorica, Montenegro - July 15th to 18th, 2010

The Montenegro association totally lived up to its promises by brilliantly organizing its first World University Championship.

Opening Ceremony

The young Montenegro Association, created in 1988 and a member of FISU since 2007, hosted its first World University Championship in 2010. It chose karate, one of the star sports on our programme for the exercise. Participation for karate, like the other martial arts – judo and taekwondo, has not stopped growing since the first edition in Lille in 1998. From 31 countries and 237 participants in 1998, it rose to 42 countries and 332 athletes in Wroclaw, Poland in 2008. There is no mistaking the sign – karate is enormously successful at FISU. Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro is where the championships were held this edition. The Moraca sports centre, in the modern part of the city, was totally renovated in 2005 for a round of Eurobasket, and was perfectly suited for the tournament. The cultural programme also gave athletes an opportunity to discover the magnificent country of Montenegro, a highly prized tourist destination.

A proud Tokey Hill with his daughter AshleyOnce again, this discipline confirmed its potential with participation on the rise. 44 countries sent 378 athletes to Podgorica (220 men and 158 women), for a new record. Our technical delegate for karate, Mr. Tokey Hill (USA) had every reason to be pleased: "We have attended one of our best karate championships. Everything went according to plan from beginning to end. We want to particularly thank the local organizing committee led by Boris Sekulic. They did an excellent job and the athletes acknowledged it by putting on an incredible show. The facilities were simply perfect, but better still, the real reason for the success of this tournament can be found in the human capital. The organizing committee was backed up by a top quality team of umpires and officials. There were no protests throughout the entire tournament, which is quite exceptional for a competition of this size. Similarly, there were very few injuries. But of course, the athletes are the ones who built up the success of this championship – with the very best karatekas from 44 countries what more could we ask? I must admit that this tournament was particularly important for me, because my daughter Ashly took a bronze medal in the Kumite category (> 61 kg). I am always pround when an American climbs on the podium – you can imagine when I am awarding the medals myself and my daughter is up there ..."

At this championship, we saw a fairly good distribution of the medals – there was not one dominant country (as we had seen in the past for example with Korea in taekwondo), but two countries outdid the others by taking their first gold medals: China, thanks to Jin Jin Li in the women's kumite > 61 kg and Korea with Lee Ji Hwan in the men's kumite > 60 kg. This represents a real achievement for these countries that have been promoting university sports constantly.

Finally, the host country took a silver medal to the cheers of the audience in the women's team kata.

Rendez-vous in 2012 in Bratislava, Slovakia for the 7^th edition of the World University Karate Championships.