World Championships Madrid - Refugee Karate Team (RKT)

Dear National Federations,

At the last edition of the World Senior Championships in Linz 2016, the WKF had for the first time a Refugee Karate Team, which was composed by 3 athletes and had the support of a specially WKF designated “Refugee Team Coach”. This was a very enriching experience for all involved and the WKF would like to renew its commitment once again in 2018 in light of the existing humanitarian crisis well known to all.

Therefore, at the World Senior Championships of Madrid in November this year we will welcome again a Refugee Karate Team sending a message to the society through Karate and giving visibility to these difficult situations faced by so many people nowadays. This Refugee Karate Team will participate under the WKF flag, anthem and symbols and will be provided with the identifying tracksuit by the WKF. They will also be accompanied by a WKF Coach, who will be designated for the Refugee Karate Team and commissioned to take care of the Refugee athletes upon arrival in Madrid for the World Championships and throughout training sessions and competition.

More importantly, we would like to inform our National Federations of the prerequisites for enabling athletes to be part of our Refugee Karate Team in Madrid 2018 at the individual competition categories:

• WKF member National Federations have to put forward to request for participation of the Refugee athletes and will be responsible for any and all expenses derived from the participation of these athletes

• Refugee athletes need to provide evidence of their granted official international Refugee status

• Refugee athletes have to provide their sports curriculum

• The competition category has to be precisely indicated

• There can only be one Refugee athlete per category for the RKT as is the case for any other delegation. In case more than one request is received for the same competition category, the WKF will determine based on the sports curriculum, between others, who is finally granted the place for competing at the World Championships.

• Requests shall be received at the WKF HQ (wkf@wkf.net) by 1st September 2018 for verification of the necessary documents and approval / rejection of the request.

We trust that this initiative will be well received by our National Federations, since we already have received some requests with regards to participation of Refugee athletes in WKF events in the past months.

Regards,

Antonio Espinós

WKF President