Kazakh karate athlete pockets historical Olympic license
Representative of Kazakhstan's karate team Darkhan Assadilov became the holder of a license to participate in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Strategy2050.kz reports with reference to Olympic.kz.
The athlete competing in a combined weight of up to 67 kilograms qualified for the Games ahead of schedule. Despite the fact that almost three months are left before the end of the qualifying period and the participants will have several tournaments, the rating points earned by Assadilov, including for the final match in Dubai at the end of last week, unconditionally allow him to get a quota. Successful performances at last year’s competitions brought him to first place among 600 participants from more than 100 countries.
The importance of this point is that, according to the selection rules, the owners of the first two places in the ranking can apply for a license. Having led the group in the combined Olympic weight up to 67 kilograms in July last year, Darkhan still holds the leadership, which he is unlikely to lose.
At the moment, he has 9817.5 points. His closest rivals are Angelo Crechenzo (7350 points) from Italy and Samdan Erai (6772.5 points) from Turkey.
Considering that karate will be presented at the Tokyo Summer Olympics for the first time in the history of the sport, the license won by Darkhan is historical.
"This event is hard to overestimate. After the IOC’s decision in 2016 to include karate in the 2020 Olympic program, we didn’t even imagine how difficult this path would be. But Darkhan met our expectations, not only becoming number one in the Olympic rating, and worldwide, but also having won a license ahead of schedule", Zhastalap Sanauov, head coach of the national team, said.
Now the national team of Kazakhstan has won 29 licenses in 15 sports.
