Karate and kickboxing on shortlist for 2028 Olympic inclusion in Los Angeles
Karate might be back to the Olympic Games sooner rather than later. After being cut from the 2024 programme in Paris, France, karate has been invited to make their case alongside nine other sports for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California. In addition to karate, kickboxing is also going to be making it’s case for the Games. Other sports invited are baseball/softball, lacrosse, breakdancing, squash, motorsport, and flag football.
Karate, kickboxing, and the Olympic Games
The Olympic Games already has four combat sports on it’s programme: boxing (which is in danger of not being included in 2028), judo, taekwondo, and wrestling (both freestyle and Greco-Roman). Karate made it’s Olympic debut in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The event was then cut from the programme seeming to only be for the Japanese people as the Games were in Japan.
Now, karate will get it’s shot back to make a triumphant return for the Olympics. The sport was well received in the 2020 Games and had quite the buzz. Conversation was at the highest when Tareg Hamedi knocked out Sajjad Ganjzadeh in the gold medal match and was disqualified for the kick being illegal.
In addition to karate, kickboxing will have the opportunity to prove it’s case to be included in Los Angeles. It was just a week ago that I wrote about kickboxing being the best fit for the Olympic Games. With the sport on the cusp of being included, it’s a matter of time before the sport is included in the Games.
Notably, Sambo is absent from the list despite a push from FIAS, the Sambo international federation. But given the situation going on with Russia and Ukraine, Sambo will have to wait to be included, perhaps in the 2032 cycle.
Kickboxing, Sambo and Muay Thai received IOC recognition shortly before the 2020 Olympics which paved kickboxing’s path to the news that we’ve got today. MMA, unfortunately, is not on the list to present itself despite strong efforts from IMMAF.
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In addition to covering Olympic karate and kickboxing for My MMA News, Blaine Henry, the author, also analyzes fights from all combat sports across the globe.
Blaine Henry can be found on Twitter, on his podcast, and Discord.
