Karate style spreads wings

most of their tournaments in the high density suburbs starting next year.
Kuz recently released their 2012 calendar and have a busy schedule ahead of them both at national and international events but it is their interest for development at national level that will see them spreading their tournaments into different places in Harare.
In the past most of their major events were held at Raylton Sports Club.
This year the Union held a few tournaments locally as they concentrated on the World Cup held in July in Kazakhstan where former champion Samson Muripo was expected to defend his title in the middleweight category.
He failed to retain the title as he came second.
Muripo, who is the Kuz technical director, said next year they will hold more local tournaments and most of them will be in the high density surbubs to promote the development of the sport.
“We have put our events in locations to encourage people to watch our events.
“It’s a developmental strategy for us and we are trying to make the sport available to everyone.
“We will see if this programme is successful and then move into other provinces but for now it is expensive to stage a tournament outside Harare,” said Muripo.
Muripo said although there are a number of international events set for next year, they wanted to focus more on local competitions so that everyone gets the opportunity to showcase their talent.
“This year our focus was on the World Cup and next year we have other international events coming but they are open categories.
“However, we have put more local tournaments for next year and we have grouped them separately with the juniors participating in their own competitions as well as the seniors.
“The issue is about sponsorship, if we stage these tournaments separately it is cheaper.
“We will have more local tournaments meant to for our karatekas to exhibit their talent,” said Muripo.
The local karatekas will open their season with the First KUZ Junior and Coltskarate championships in Glen View in January.
In February they are set to hold the black belt gradings to be conducted by Shihan Bas Van Stenis of South Africa and the Arosume Properties Kyokushinkai Karate merit awards.
In the same month they will have the senior championships which will be followed by the Second Kuz junior and colts karate championships and the local tournaments will run until September when the Union will hold the second senior men and women championships. The local karatekas are also set to feature in international tournaments with their first assignment scheduled for April for the All Eastern Japan International tournament.
It will be followed by the Southern Africa Kyokushin Union Karate tournament in South Africa. In June they compete in the All Japan International tournament and will be followed with the World Karate tournament in November, which will be their last assignment outside the country.