Indian karate squad will skip Asian Games

CHENNAI: It has been discovered that the Indian karate team has not been approved by the Asian Karate Federation, a day after the Asian Games-bound wushu player tested positive. India sent entries for the Games in Hangzhou, however as of right moment, there may not be a squad.

The Asian Karate Federation reportedly refused to recognise the entries of the Indian contingent, which was the cause of the lack of participation. Because the names had not been approved by the National Sports Federation of Karate, which is accredited by the Asian and World Karate Federation, it declared the Indian contingent invalid.

This indicates that the AKF has rejected the team chosen by the Sports Authority of India. The fact that the Karate India Organisation (KIO) was denied recognition by the sports ministry due to violations of the National Sports Development Code of India exacerbated matters.

It is evident that the matter had been dragged out for a considerable amount of time, according to a status report that was recently given in the Delhi High Court. To further complicate matters, the WKF wrote to the IOA stating that it regarded the KIO as the official NSF in India and that any athlete who is not a member of the KIO will not be permitted to compete in international events.

The report states: “The IOA representative informed that a communication dated June 14, 2023 was received from the president of the WKF addressed to the president of the IOA stating that KIO is the sole WKF representative karate body in India to select the athletes for international competitions held under the auspices of IOC, WKF, and their representative continental bodies. As a result, the trials event where athletes will be chosen for the Asian Games in 2022 will need to strictly restrict participation to individuals associated with KIO. However, the SAI chose the team during the selection trials, which were supervised by paramilitary force coaches, and the SAI was not given permission by the KIO.

The Union of India, the Karate India Organisation, and the IOA were ordered to meet to discuss the problem on July 10 by the Delhi High Court in order for a team to represent the nation in the upcoming Asian Games. Thus, it was decided to hold another round of trials in order to choose the finest athletes at a meeting presided over by the joint secretary for sports, SAI, KIO, and IOA. It’s interesting that they chose July 15, which was the deadline for submitting names for the Games.