The second stop of the 2020 Karate 1-Premier League takes place this weekend in Dubai (UAE).
Scheduled from February 14 to 16, the event will gather top karatekas in the quest to earn the qualification to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
As one of the last events in the Olympic qualification process, the Karate 1-Premier League Dubai is expected to be crucial in the race to determine the athletes who will participate in Karate’s Olympic debut in Tokyo. Nearly 600 competitors from no less than 85 countries have confirmed their participation at the big event. All but two of the current World champions and ten out of the 12 defending Grand Winners are registered to participate in Dubai.
The top four-ranked athletes in the Olympic standings will qualify directly to the Games when the qualification process by ranking is due on April 6. The quest to take the qualifying positions is too close to call in most of the categories, thus making the points to be awarded in Dubai critical to the final list of Olympic athletes.
In Male Kumite -67kg, athletes Vinicius Figueira 0f Brazil and Ali Elsawy of Egypt are tied with the same number of points (5872.5) in the last qualifying spot, while Eray Samdan of Turkey and Angelo Crescenzo of Italy are separated by only 202.5 points in third and fourth place respectively for the second qualifying spot for karatekas coming from Male Kumite -60kg.
Meanwhile, in Male Kumite -75kg, Stanislav Horuna of Ukraine is just 360 points away from the last qualifying spot currently in the USA’s Thomas Scott’s hands. In Female Kumite -55kg, Iran’s Sara Bahmanyar has 660? points advantage over Jana Messerschmidt of Germany in the last qualifying spot while the differences in Female Kumite -61kg are just 502.5 points, with Jovana Prekovic of Serbia in fourth place and France’s Gwendoline Philippe taking the fifth position. The quest is even more thrilling in Female Kumite +68kg with seven athletes separated by less than 1000 points fighting for the last qualifying spots.
The Karate 1-Premier League Dubai starts on Friday, 09:00 (local time). The elimination rounds will be held on Friday and Saturday, with the medal bouts taking place on Sunday. The finals are scheduled from 14:30 to 17:00 (local times)
Source: www.wkf.net
