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Tokyo 2020 will be a 'hello and goodbye' to karate at the Olympics, at least for now.

Paris 2024 has already announced the list of sports and the Japanese martial art has been left out.

The news has exploded within the Spanish team, full of young people who, although they do not renounce being in Japan, had their dreams focused on the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower.

Two good examples of the feeling of this sport are Lidia Rodríguez and Sergio Galán, both very young and students of the UCAM.

Both have enough category to be in Tokyo 20 but they play with the trump card that only one kata competitor per country is allowed, which complicates the Olympic ticket a lot.

Lidia says that the news is bad for Spanish sport because "we have a number 1 in the world ranking (Sandra Sánchez) and a number 2 (Damián Quintero). We are a world power and I personally when we received the news it made my heart shrink because it is a dream that is going away, you have some ideas of the future that have gone away. "

In the same vein, Sergio Galán reflects the sensations among the members of the Spanish Federation: "It's a very big suit, we did not expect it, they did not let us see each other in a Games and they're already throwing us in. But, well, karate has It has not been Olympic and will continue to exist for many years, and we will do everything possible to return to the Olympic Games in the future. "

And that everything pointed to that the karate had options to consolidate as an Olympic sport because in the last international competitions had shown a spectacular growth as recalled Lidia Rodríguez, who thinks that the reasons for their exclusion for Paris 24 can go beyond of the purely sporting: "I think it's a matter of sponsorship ... At the World Cup in Madrid there were 1,200 athletes from 131 different countries, this sport moves a lot of people, just as what is lacking is a powerful sponsorship that other sports do".

Karate and studies, a possible combination thanks to the UCAM

Lidia Rodríguez and Sergio Galán can combine high level sport and university studies thanks to the UCAM model of personalized tutoring that allows them to plan their workload based on their training and competitions.

Lidia, who studies the Degree in Early Childhood Education, affirms that although "it is being very complicated because this year we have many international competitions and it becomes more difficult to combine it, the truth is we are moving forward." Thanks to the UCAM I have been able to continue with my studies and not leave them aside. "

Galán in turn puts in value a key figure in this model, which is that of the student tutor, a student of the same grade as the athlete, who will solve doubts and will guide him on a day-to-day basis: "The UCAM puts me many facilities, including a tutor student that is great and that helps me a lot. "

Source: UCAM