One hundred ninety-two Karate fighters fiercely competed in the 9th World Karate Tournament for the most prestigious Kyokushin title, the World Open Champion. The three day event fully showcased the spirit of Kyokushin in front of over 25,000 fans. The first day saw most of the tournament favorites win and advance to the second day when champions of each and every nation began facing off. After the completion of the 3rd round matches, the world's top thirty two were determined and they proceeded to the final day.

Up to the quarter finals, Ewerton Teixeira from Brazil lived up to his reputation by beating all his opponents without going through extension rounds. The Karate Motherland, Team Japan, struggled to grasp a win and ended up having only one fighter in the top eight. The Kyokushin powerhouse Russia brought over twenty contenders and most of them made their way to the final day. Besides those three nations, some of the European countries also fought extremely well.

While so many upsets happened during the course of the final matches, Ewerton Teixeira continued to pile up clear victories and became the second non-Japanese World Champion after his sempai, Francisco Filho. With inexhaustible stamina and spirit within his strong body and lightening punches accelerating like a F1 car, the humble Brazilian cornered his prey like a vicious lion and won the world title.

The event saw eight Canadians compete very hard but losing in the first round. All of them faced top contenders either from Russia or Japan and learned what it really takes to face world class competition. The one positive news for our fellow Canadians was the fact that we worked very closely throughout the event. The team consisted of two from Vancouver, one from Toronto and five from Montreal. Our hearts merged as one immediately after walking into the Tokyo Gym and provided strong energy as a team. This had been much needed to build up our mental strength to face off against top competitors in the world. It finally happened and gave us a solid start for future international events to come. The support the team received from Canadian people was incredible as well. There were over seventy students who flew all the way from different parts of Canada, most of them wearing the red team t-shirts made for this event. It was very encouraging to hear the loud cheers from the stands when each Canadian fighter walked up to the mat.

We might have all lost but the team spirit we earned from this event was truly victorious. The countdown towards the 10th World Tournament has already begun.

Team Canada: (from left) Johnathan Aumout, Victor Potvin, Johnny Leblanc, Dominic Adam
Koszla Zbigniew, Michi Nagase, Stephan Beauregard, Stephan Parent

Official Results
1st: Ewerton Teixeira, BRAZIL
2nd: Jan Soukup, CZECH REPUBLIC
3rd: Artur Hovhannisian, ARMENIA
4th: Darmen Sadvokasov, RUSSIA
5th: Andrey Stepin, RUSSIA
6th: Alejandro Navarro, SPAIN
7th: Eduardo Tanaka, BRAZIL
8th: Tatsuya Murata, JAPAN
Best Technique: Artur Hovhannisian, ARMENIA
Best New Fighter: Tatsuya Murata, JAPAN
Best Tameshiwari: Lechi Kurbanov, RUSSIA
　

October 30, 2007
Countdown began.

Seventeen days left until the most challenging day of the 192 Kyokushin fighters. Johnny and Michi are getting ready at the final stage of their training routine. In two weeks, we leave Vancouver and get to Tokyo on November 13th. There, we will team up with fighters from East. In the past four years, we shared many exciting moments with them at various tournaments in Montreal, New York, Tokyo, Osaka and Vancouver. The bonding between West and East is ever stronger than before.  Time is ripe for the Canadians to fight together against some of the top contenders in the world.

You can view the tournament draw at the European Kyokushin web site.
Some of the classes at Downtown and Richmond East will be cancelled due to the event. Click here for details.

September 28, 2007
A Tournament Draw Released.

192 selected fighters from the world have been placed in a tournament draw.
The draw was released yesterday on the World Karate magazine. Michi's first opponent is Krzysztof Habraszka. This fighter from Poland has great tournament records with numerous medals received at various international events. Fighting with such a great fighter will bring Michi a tremendous experience and a confidence boost. The experience is what Michi is looking for as a rookie in this spectacular event.

Johnny's first opponent is a young fighter, Vladimir Kozhokin from Russia. Although we have never heard the name before, we know we must not underestimate the opponent, especially the fighter is from Russia, the Kyokushin powerhouse. This event will likely land Johnny's fighting career to an end. So, unlike Michi whose goal is gaining experiences, Johnny aims to actually win in this highest caliber Kyokushin event. Everything he gained from the past six years will be focused on the battle.
　

September 18 to 21, 2007
WORLD TOURNAMENT TRAINING CAMP

The camp at the Richmond East Dojo for the two fighters pushed their limits extremely well and strengthened the bonding ever stronger than before. Johnny and Michi forced themselves to train three times a day. The contents of each session ranged from shadow boxing, bag work, sparring, to swimming. Technical strengths and weaknesses, strategies and training routines were frequently discussed during the camp. The discussions succeeded in making it clear that how we most effectively spend the next 55 days until the most challenging event in November.

Facing such an extreme challenge would bring you a variety of obstacles; creating times for training, following a daily routine and keeping strict diets. Influences and pressures generated from the World Tournament would go beyond your dojo and reach your life in general. Surviving them for over six months prior to the event is actually harder than the three-day event. But the sense of achievement you are rewarded with when it finally gets done is priceless. Looking at how hard they endure, train and think, I again came to realize the Kyokushin's World Tournament was meant to grow its competitor not to be only a great fighter but to be also a great Budo-ka. Osu.

July 5th, 2007
North American Team Picked.

Click the poster to visit the Honbu's web site for more info.
You can find more about the world tournament here.