WKF World Championships in Italy !
Exactly 52 countries and 700 starts, exciting fights, many new WKF countries and old friends met in Andria.
Fighters from all 6 (!) continents showed so many good fights, performed top forms with weapons, music or without in empty hand categories.
AND: 12 more countries did not show up because of Visa problems !
Biggest teams after WKF ITALY was Canada, France, Brazil, Portugal, Austria, Romania and India.
A huge team comes from Argentina, our next host for the World Championships 2018. President Carlos SUAREZ had many coffees with presidents and many officials want to know how it goes in Buenos Aires, November 5th to 10th 2018.
Few countries did come without at least an official referee. This is unacceptable for future events. No excuse will be accepted any more in Greece or Argentina. According our rules each country MUST BRING for any 25 fighters one referee, or pay a deposit of 250 Euro each. Please be fair or pay, every country president know it !
Strongest discipline with most fighters was as usual ring sport with most competitors in K-1 style. Best weight category men – 67 Kg with 18 fighters, best woman category – 54 Kg with 8 woman.
MMA was also strong, many Canadians and polish fighters won first place. By the way – the Italian organizers produce Champion belts for all disciplines (!) instead of Gold medals for all disciplines.
In Semi contact/point fighting we had more than 100 fighters, a significant increase compared to Varazdin 2012 or Prague 2014.
Even more competitors we had in light contact and kick light division. In juniors under 18 as well as in adults many Italians challenged the world.
In Forms we had less athletes than last time, but the level was very high. Chinese grand master ZHANG Desheng performed an amazing monkey style form and became gold medal and first WKF World Champion ever for China !
The audience was enthusiastic to see this original Chinese traditional form.
First time in WKF we had SANDA or Chinese boxing division. Not so many fighters first time, because many country presidents did not bring Wushu fighters. But the fights was great, our Sanda & Wushu World president Mr. YAN Dinan was satisfied for first time. In European Championships in Santorini 2017 and next World Championships in Buenos Aires 2018 we will have more Chinese style fighters for sure.
In the WKF World congress so many presidents attend and we had few good points on the agenda. On request of few presidents we had some changes in the WKF board of directors.
New WKF amateur division world president is Mr. Pascal DELFOSSE / France. New WKF European director is Mr. Cesar MOREIRA / Portugal. Because of the dismissal of our former Australian member the General assembly vote for Mr. Hans ROMANOWSKI / Brasil as new WKF General Secretary.
Mr. Samer HALIMEH / Syria and Mr. Dr. Hasan GHADBAN / Lebanon are new appointed A1 supervisor. For sure a great reinforcement for our international rules committee. Next World referee seminar is weekend before European Championships in Santorini April 28th.
List of results and many photos in the gallery coming soon, please be patient.