Dear Friends in Karate,

As the pandemic situation in Canada starts to improve, many sports are making a return to competition after a long absence. This is true for Karate Canada and the World and Continental federations as well. The World Karate Federation has announced that the Senior World Championships will go ahead in Dubai this November.

This year the National Championships scheduled for St. John’s NL in July had to be cancelled, but we still plan to go to St.-John’s for the 2022 National Championships over the same Canada Day weekend timeframe. In the meantime, we are faced with having to choose a team to attend the 2021 WKF and May 2022 PKF Senior Championships.

As Karate Canada has not held a competition since 2019 it is an almost impossible task to choose a full team without allowing the athletes to compete. In lieu of a National Championship, Karate Canada will instead hold a National Team Trial event for the sole purpose of selecting a senior team roster prior to the 2022 National Championship.

To hold this event in Calgary will take a great deal of cooperation and understanding from all involved. There will be extra protocols due to Covid. Your Provincial/Territorial Sport Organisation will have a very difficult timeline to try to choose athletes to attend. Referees, Coaches, Staff and Volunteers will all need to work extra hard to create a safe environment for all of us.

One of the lines of a doju kun that I still recite on occasion is “should create a sense of solidarity on the basis of mutual support”. Knowing our community as I do, I have no doubt that we can make the Team Trials a safe, effective, and collegial event.

Stay safe, stay strong,

Craig Vokey
President