The French Karate Federation is coming out of its silence in the midst of the controversy over the absence of discipline at the 2024 Olympic Games, and while this Thursday the organizing committee of the Paris Olympics reaffirmed, once again, that karate would not be on the program.
By the hand of its president, Francis Didier, the FFK sent this Friday afternoon an open letter to the president of the organizing committee for the Olympic Games: "We ask you, Mr. Estanguet, to revise your judgment and to reconsider the exits karate for the 2024 Olympics, as it did in 2000 for canoeing, allowing you to become Olympic champion.
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For karate in Paris 2024 🥋✊ # karate2024 @ Paris2024 @TonyEstanguet
- FFKarate (@ffkarate) August 13, 2021
In this letter, the French Karate Federation recalls among other things the "universal, unifying (...) young, popular" character of the discipline, not to mention the 250,000 practitioners who come together in 5,000 clubs in France "a dense fabric which extends far beyond tatami mats, to social networks, where thousands of fans of all ages also celebrate karate.
Francis Didier also talks about Steven Da Costa, gold medalist on the Tokyo tatami mats in less than 67 kg in kumite, tricolor flag bearer during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Games.
Read also "Estanguet quickly forgets what happened" ... Steven Da Costa's fight to return to karate at the Paris Olympics
To support its request, the Federation quotes the words of the Minister Delegate in charge of Sports Roxana Maracineanu, interviewed by Le Parisien who said this week that "the integration of karate would be a beautiful link between Tokyo 2021 and Paris 2024.
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Messages to the OCOG are multiplying.
Steven Da Costa himself has announced that he wants to do everything to turn the tide.
This Thursday he was followed by other French karatekas who supported him on Twitter while a sixty deputies wrote an open letter to Tony Estanguet to bring the discipline back in 2024.
The Olympic canoe-kayak champion staunchly defends this decision taken in February 2019 "the role of the organizing committee is to find this balance, to keep the Games sober, to fight against gigantism by adding sports and athletes".
