verzilveren

 

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Sports and President of the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki al-Faisal announced that karate player Tarek Hamedi will be honored and gifted 5 million Saudi riyals (US$1.3 million).

“Because he is the hero in the eyes of all of us, our Olympic champion Tarek Hamedi will be honored with the gold medal award (5 million riyals) for his excellence, creativity, and honorable representation of the country in front of world stars in Tokyo 2020,” Prince Abdul Aziz added.

The Prince added in a tweet: “You deserve it, hero, and the future is for you, God willing.”  (Arab news)

 

GL: inmiddels hebben ook nog anderen toegezegd meer geld te willen toekennen aan de zilveren medaille.

 In 2021, Tokyo hosted the Olympic games, and for the first time Karate was participated in on the world Olympic stage. However, in the final gold medal match of the entire tournament a controversial result materialized.

Saudi Arabia and Iran met in a bid for Olympic gold. The former was represented by Tareg Hamedi and the latter by Sajad Ganjzadeh. What looked to be a win on points for Hamedi turned around late when Ganjzadeh in an attempt to pull ahead in a dash forward, got caught with a front leg round kick coming in.

The kick would knock Ganjzadeh out cold, and leave both the Saudi Arabian and the crowd waiting anxiously for a judge’s decision. By Olympic point-Karate rules, you can be penalized for excessive force. This is because traditional Karate is meant to demonstrate control, ellagence, technique and athleticism. Control being one of the most important, assumes that athletes should be able to restrain from damage while executing perfect technique and timing. It is also a means to safely allow the multiple match a day format required by the Olympics and other large tournament events.

However on the other side, one can also be penalized for not intelligently defending themself. If you were to run face first into your opponent’s punch without attempting to parry, block or move off the line, what kind of skill set are you showing? Ultimately the judges would rule excessive contact and Hamedi, who was up on points, would lose his chance at gold by disqualification. Discourse on whether the judges made the right call quickly began circulating, and one of those with an opinion seems to be Karate Combat president Adam S. Kovacs.

“I love amateur karate – I was a world-level competitor myself – but you don’t find this rule in other amateur combat sports like boxing, wrestling or judo. I think it’s bad for our sport, which is part of what drove us to create a full-contact professional karate league. I think Hamedi was robbed of a gold medal and I don’t think that’s how Ganjzadeh wanted to win either. So we are offering both fighters a rematch in Karate Combat under full-contact rules before the end of the year” stated Kovacs on the official Karate Combat site.  (mma island)

GL: het lijkt, ook als je beelden in slo-mo bekijkt toch op bijna voorbedachte rade van Ganjzadeh. Net als je bij voetbal wel eens ziet: er komt een lage bal die dan bewust met het hoofd wordt gespeeld waardoor de tegenstander zonder echt hoog het been te heffen de kopper dan raakt. Dit was ook een hele mooie hoge cirkeltrap: Mawashi-geri

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/karate-japan-loses-5th-competitor-kumite-contest-araga-still-2021-08-07/