A great success at the World Championships in Paris!
The premiere was a great success: 36 athletes from 18 nations inspired the spectators with their performances at the first demonstration competition for people with disabilities in the history of the WKF.
Only the fact to participate and be part of the schedule of the World Championship, is a great success for our group.
The only category which was shown and judged by seven referees with a point system, was kata.
On Wednesday 22 competitors in the category Intellectual Impaired started on two areas. After the exciting group stages the Venezualias Jose Rojas and Santana Nelson turned out as the two finalists. Jose Rojas won this very close fight against his compatriot. Derek Darvel from Scotland and Michael Lesic from Germany are both on the third place.
On Thursday, it was time for the wheelchair users. Here, Pontus Johannsen from Sweden was in front of Zoran Novak from Croatia and Franz Eichinger from Austria.
The highlight was the following competition of blind people. The majority of the katas had such a good level, that it was impossible to differentiat those with katas of people without this impairment. The superior winner was the Australian Ray Morcomb, who was ahead of Nicolai Bondarev from Moldova and Yasushi Oba from Japane. As a special reward Morcomb was allowed to show this kata on the final day in front of an arena, which was sold out. (see extra report)
This demonstration competition was a big step towards an own World Championship. Participents, officials,judges and spec
tators were thrilled by the performances and so this first official competition has become an unforgetable experience for all of us.
